Manufacturing and launching student-made microsatellites: “hands-on” education at the University of Roma

The research and education program UNISAT was established at Scuola di Ingegneria Aerospaziale of Università di Roma “La Sapienza” by the research group GAUSS (Gruppo di Astrodinamica dell’Università degli Studi “la Sapienza”). The main goal of the program is to provide “hands-on education”, where the students can complete their education by practicing on a real, even if small, space program. The paper describes the UNISAT program, focussing on the design, manufacturing, test and launch of the microsatellite UNISAT-3, launched on June 29th 2004. The satellite has been designed integrated, tested and currently operated in orbit by the students, assisted by University staff. Some preliminary results of the experiments in orbit are briefly discussed.