New Satellite Mission Control Center at MSU

June 23, 2008

STARKVILLE, Miss. - Mississippi State researchers have partnered with a Starkville-based company to commercialize small, low-cost satellites in the United States.

MSU officials selected InfiniSat, a company formed as a spinoff of university research, to assist university researchers in bringing small satellite technology into the U.S. market.

"MSU and InfiniSat will work with the federal research agencies to develop less expensive, highly effective technologies that can be deployed quickly," said David Shaw, director of the Northern Gulf Institute, a MSU-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Cooperative Institute. He said MSU and InfiniSat's goal is to build a "full spaceflight mission operations and training center" for Mississippi with capabilities to track and communicate with satellites passing overhead. Information from these satellites will be used for everything from weather prediction and earth imaging to disaster monitoring and communication.

MSU Vice President for Economic Development and Research Kirk Schulz said, "This partnership helps bring world-class capabilities to Mississippi." Faculty, students and commercial partners will have a "mission control" center at the InfiniSat headquarters in MSU's High Performance Computing Collaboratory in the Thad Cochran Research, Technology, and Economic Development Park.

"This creates opportunities for students and faculty to get hands-on experience building and operating real spacecraft," Schulz said.

InfiniSat CEO Tom Koger anticipates the company growing from the small group of founders to more than a 100 people building satellites and satellite subsystems at the Starkville company, already employing staff that includes graduate students from MSU's Bagley College of Engineering.

This latest partnership shows the history of MSU's focus on small satellite technology. MSU began a partnership in 2007 with the British-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd as part of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration cooperative agreement. MSU also offers a cross-disciplinary graduate degree concentration in small satellite engineering.

View the Sun Herald article.
View the WAPT article.

For more information on MSU's small satellite program, contact Charles Hill at 662-325-9576.
For more information about InfiniSat, contact Josh Jeanson at 662-279-8679 or email info@infinisat.com.