MeshSAT

UPDATE—Read the 11/7/21 story: “Dukes in Space!” 

The global Small Satellite market is projected to grow from USD 2.8 billion in 2020 to USD 7.1 billion by 2025. This market is driven by various factors, such as the growing demand for low earth orbit (LEO) services, demand for Earth observation imagery and analytics, and an increasing in number of LEO-based space exploration missions. Currently, each satellite must have its own dedicated system to communicate with the ground, a pathway that is costly to maintain from both a power and economic perspective, fraught with signal loss as these satellites orbit the earth. The MeshSAT development effort is a program focused on designing, developing, testing, and launching a constellation of small satellites to provide this market with access to low-cost, reliable LEO wireless networking and seamless communications to the ground. 

“We choose to take JMU into space now, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our student’s energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one that we will win!”