April 29, 2011 02:27 pm EDT

SIM-sized satellites to lift off with Endeavour this afternoon

They won't be beaming GPS or radio signals back to Earth anytime soon, but these one-inch-square satellites could one day travel to distant planets -- without fuel. Developed over a period of three years by a team of undergraduates at Cornell University, the Sprite chips could eventually be used for communication, flying in clusters like tiny space plankton. After hitching a ride on-board the final space shuttle Endeavour mission this afternoon, the three prototype satellites will be mounted outside the International Space Station, where they'll sit for the next few years, exposed to conditions found only beyond our atmosphere. Perhaps someday we'll even see some "Spprite" KIRFs by the time China's own space station is ready to hit the launchpad in 2020.

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