Go ISRO! I wish the Indian Govt did one less scam a year and granted a 10X increase in ISRO budget. But you are doing some amazing work on an operating budget less than a big American University. Stay Strong ! And go Mars in 2014!
It's the third cubesat developed at Aalborg University in Denmark. From their homepage:
"The AAUSAT3 educational project was initiated in the fall 2007 - introducing students to all aspects of satellite design and development. The objective of the AAUSAT3 mission is to fly two different types of AIS (Automated Identifications System) receivers. One of the AIS receivers onboard AAUSAT3 is an SDR (Software Defined Radio) based AIS receiver. The other AIS receiver is a conventional hardware receiver. The goal of AAUSAT3 is to investigate the quality of ship monitoring from space."
Part of the payload is a nano satellite - STRaND-1 - developed by the University of Surrey (England), that amongst other things got a Google Nexus phone onboard loaded with a custom app which will test if "in space no-one can hear you scream"
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21577780
I wish GSLV was ready, wish ISRO has more budget, wish we have a bigger workforce in space R&D. I'm sad that after so many years we don't have a reliable launcher other than PSLV, though it GETS the work done.
one thing particularly good about ISRO's recent strategy is to launch as many satellites as possible. It's cost effective and also helping academic satellites. and PSLV the workhorse of ISRO.
I guess they are. ISRO also has a plan to eventually let private players build complete PSLV system(currently they build 80% components) and operate them. Leaving ISRO to concentrate more on GSLV and reusable rocket more.
