Student satellites generically refers to satellies built and operated by student teams. They come in several styles, from entirely volunteer projects run on a shoestring to substantially funded projects staffed with professionals as well as students.
SEDSAT-1 was built by a student team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. It was launched as a secondary payload in October of 1998. It has been sending telemetry since, though has not responded to ground commands. Because of the high degree of autonomy designed into SEDSAT the automatic telemetry allows the highest priority experiments to be conducted even without an uplink, although other experiments cannot be activated. The SEDS link contains information on the project, collected telemetry, and software to join in the activity.
Citizen Explorer is under construction by the students of the University of Colorado. It is scheduled for launch at the end of 1999.
Stanford
Arizona State
STEDI
USC
As student satellites projects are successful, more people are interested in organizing one. As the faculty advisor to SEDSAT-1 I learned a lot about how such projects are done, and things to do and not to do. I've written a paper on SEDSAT Lessons Learned which I've posted. Page count and format limits restricted what could go into that paper. In the spirit of sharing hard-won experience, here are some additional thoughts.
Having students build a satellite may seem, at first glance, as outlandish. Satellites cost millions of $US, hardly a student club project. But conversations in the community will yield tales of satellites being built for "free," or on budgets less than US$100,000. How is this possible?
To the extent that is it possible, it is through the magic of accounting. In reality, all of these projects probably really cost at least US$1 million. They may actually have budgets of much less, but that is because other costs are being hidden elsewhere. This is not a bad thing, costs in this business are slippery, and precise cost accounting of secondary payload programs may be impossible. To understand the cost issue you have to understand it from the perspective of satellite construction and launch.
A significant satellite (even the simple student satellites built) represents a minimum investment of several thousand hours of highly skilled labor. Labor involved includes machining, electronics construction, programming, and test. Significant numbers of launch vehicle contractor and government peronnel will have to witness tests, review documentation, and supervise launch operations. Some of the skilled personnel may not be paid in cash (for example, students receiving academic or research credit), but the opportunity costs remains nonetheless. Many of the personnel involved will be paid.