A student-built spacecraft rocketed into space alongside several other microsatellites early Thursday, riding a Russian booster skyward in a space staged from Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

The boxy SSETI Express satellite, built by more than 400 university students for the European Space Agency (ESA), launched into space atop a 10-story Kosmos 3M rocket at 2:52 a.m. EDT (0652 GMT). According to Russia’s Interfax News Agency, the spacecraft and seven other microsatellites reached their intended orbit shortly afterward.



“This image that we have of the launcher on the pad, this is the image they had,” said Philippe Willekens, education projects administrator for the ESA, of SSETI Express’ student builders before the successful launch. “They wanted to…launch that dream, and it’s finally paid off.”



The SSETI Express satellite is the first spacecraft of three planned by the ESA’s



Student Space Exploration Technology Initiative (SSETI) program, which is at encouraging student interest in space and engineering, while offering practical experience.



Built from donated and student-built components, the 136-pound (62-kilogram) SSETI Express satellite is about the size of a small washing machine and is expected to photograph the earth and serve as a radio transponder for amateur radio operators. It also carried three 4-inch (10-centimeter) wide picosatellites into orbit, ESA officials said.



Riding into orbit with SSETI Express were Russia’s Mozhayets-5 satellite, as well as the Britain’s TopSat, Iran’s Sina-1, Norway’s Ncube-2, Germany’s UWE-1, Japan’s XI-5 and China’s DMC-4 – which is also known as Beijing-1.



More here.