UT Student-Built Spacecraft Separate and Communicate 102
BJ_Covert_Action writes "Some students from the Cockrell School of Engineering in Austin, Texas have built, developed, launched, and operated two historic satellites. The FASTRAC satellites make up the first small-scale satellite system which is composed of two separate spacecraft that can communicate to each other. On March 22, the single FASTRAC satellite successfully separated into two smaller spacecraft that are currently operating and communicating with each other. While separation and communication has occurred between paired satellites before, this is the first time it has been done with such a small platform (the FASTRAC spacecraft weigh approximately 60 lbs.). Furthermore, this is the first time a student-designed and built space system has been composed of two separate spacecraft that can interact with each other. One of the most impressive things about this mission is that it was done incredibly cheap, at $250,000, which is far below the costs associated with traditional spacecraft."
Sure it's cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the launch costs that kills you (Score:5, Insightful)
These rockets are derived from converted [wikipedia.org] old Minuteman/Peacekeeper ICBMs.
Despite that, the launch costs of such a rocket can still be $40-50 million [spaceflightnow.com]
So, unless you can score a free ride for your doohickey, it ain't so cheap.
Re:It is the launch costs that kills you (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. While I agree that what the students did was both an achievement and a valuable educational process, much of the cost of sending stuff into orbit is, not surprisingly, sending stuff into orbit. They got to do that for free*.
*Hidden costs 101: get somebody else to pay for it and say you did everything amazingly cheap.