Marooned!

The first-ever earth satellite developed by European University students has been put into a standby mode to conserve energy, after mission control noticed a drop in voltage in the probe's batteries. If a fix isn't discovered soon, SSETI Express will soon be adrift, out of power, in low-earth orbit.

The European Space Agency, which launched the satellite Thursday morning from Russia's Pletsetsk Cosmodrome atop a Kosmos 3M launch vehicle, reported to the New Kerala newspaper the craft began to lose power shortly after launch. “We're having some problems charging the batteries from the solar panels. It gave us some cause for concern,” said Neil Melville, project manager for SSETI Express at ESA's base in Noordwijk in the Netherlands.

The agency was not sure if the mission could be saved. "The power supply was decreasing quite dramatically," said ESA spokesperson Simonetta Cheli.

Despite the power shortage, the SSETI Express -- which was designed over the Internet by students -- is being called a "remarkable success" on the project website, adding the probe achieved its first two mission objectives and a number of milestones before it was struck by the power loss.

"We put it in safe mode to check what's going on and see if we can still recover the satellite," said Cheli. She added if the glitch could not be fixed, "there would be no power to do anything."

A statement on the website called the chances of a recovery "small but significant."

However, as the goal of the project was to have students working together on the full space-launch process, even the failure is seen as something of a positive for the group. "The educational goals of the project continue to be met by the student teams who are still working hard to analyse and understand all available data, such that the lessons learned can be applied to future missions," said the website statement.

FMI: http://sseti.gte.tuwien.ac.at/WSW4/