March 28, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Simon Lee
Project Coordinator
(805) 756-5807
stlee@calpoly.edu		 Professor Jordi Puig-Suari
Project Advisor
Phone: (805) 756-6479
jpuigsua@calpoly.edu

Cal Poly Hosts International Student Satellite Teams This Week, Next

SAN LUIS OBISPO - Students from nine universities from around the world are visiting Cal Poly this week and next to collaborate on a college satellite launch.

To prepare for their May launch, the CubeSate teams from six United States universities and three foreign universities are meeting March 27-April 14 at Cal Poly's Advanced Technology Laboratories to integrate satellites into Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployers, called P-PODs.

The metal P-POD containers were designed and developed by Cal Poly students.
Each P-POD will carry three satellites during their ride into space. Final testing of the satellites will take place later this spring at Raytheon's Goleta headquarters. Raytheon serves as an industry partner on the CubeSat project.

"This is everyone's last chance to make sure their satellite is functional before launching them," said CubeSat coordinator Simon Lee. "After this, they will be shipped to the Russian launch site."

The nine teams of students developed 14 satellites, including two Cal Poly satellites. They will be launched on Thursday, May 27, from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Universities participating in the CubeSat integration and testing activities include the University of Illinois, the University of Kansas, Cornell, Nihon University in Japan, Norwegian University, Hankuk Aviation University in South Korea, Montana State, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Arizona. An industry group from The Aerospace Corp. is also participating.

To learn more about the week's activities, the upcoming launch or CubeSat Project, call (805) 756-5807, or e-mail stlee@calpoly.edu.

A joint project -- begun in 1999 -- of Cal Poly and Stanford University's Space Systems Development Laboratory initially developed standards for the design of picosatellites. As a result, picosatellites built by students at universities worldwide are launched using a common deployer -- known as a "P-POD" -- developed at Cal Poly.

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Editors please note: for a schedule of the students lab activities, contact Amy Hewes, above, or Teresa Hendrix in Public Affairs at (805) 756-7266 or thendrix@calpoly.edu.