UoSAT-3, also known as UO-14 and OSCAR-14, is a British satellite in

Low Earth Orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. It was built by a spin-off company of the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

Surrey Satellite Technology Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, or SSTL, is a company involved in the manufacture and operation of small satellites. A spin-off company of the University of Surrey, it is presently wholly owned by Airbus Defence and Space. The company began ...

(SSTL) and launched in January 1990 from

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

. The satellite functioned as one of a series of

OSCAR Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

satellite in orbit around the Earth, as well as observing Earth and performing scientific experiments. UoSAT-3 was launched on the same rocket as its sister satellite,

UoSAT-4 UoSAT-4, also known as UO-15 and OSCAR-15, is a British satellite in Low Earth Orbit. It was built by a spin-off company of the University of Surrey, Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and launched in January 1990 from French Guiana. UoSAT-4 wa ...

Current status

UoSAT-3 exceeded its expected operational life by 3 years and ceased active service in 1999. However, amateur radio enthusiasts managed to track the satellite for a certain amount of time afterwards via the satellite's FM voice transponder. The satellite, which is now non-operational, forms a part of the growing amounts of

space debris Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, space garbage, or cosmic debris) are defunct human-made objects in spaceprincipally in Earth orbitwhich no longer serve a useful function. These include dere ...

orbiting around the Earth. The payload will decay in the Earth's atmosphere some time in the future.

References

University of Surrey Satellites orbiting Earth Amateur radio satellites Satellites of the United Kingdom Spacecraft launched in 1990 {{UK-spacecraft-stub