Student Space Exploration & Technology Initiative

The Student Space Exploration & Technology Initiative, known as SSETI, is a collaborative project run by students from universities across Europe working with the space industry to design and build microsatellites together. Because most individual universities lack the full range of skills needed to build a satellite on their own, SSETI pools academic capabilities from many institutions to make pan-European student missions possible, including ambitious projects such as a lunar lander, through the fragmentation and redistribution of smaller, locally achievable tasks. Its projects have included the SSETI Express satellite, the European Student Earth Orbiter developed with the European Space Agency and launched in December 2018, the European Student Moon Orbiter, and SWARM, a nanosatellite designed to release smaller femtosatellites into low Earth orbit.