A TEAM of students are hoping to conquer the final frontier,
with the launch of an Irish satellite into space. The project,
involving 30 universities from around the world, aims to design
and launch a network of 50 miniature satellites to study the
lower layers of the atmosphere known as the 'thermosphere' and
'ionosphere'. The satellites, called 'CubeSats', will be
launched 320km into space from Murmansk in northern Russia,
where they will orbit the Earth. If the team's proposal is
accepted, it would be the first ever Irish- designed and built
satellite to be launched into space. Taking part in the project
is Dinesh Vather (29), a post-graduate student in DIT's
optomechanics faculty. He is among the team of four postgraduate
students and four undergraduates who recently returned from the
Arctic Circle in Sweden, where they were the first students in
Ireland to launch a probe into space. The probe, designed and
built on Bolton Street, is attached to the outside of a
converted Cold War era surface-to-air missi