Meet the school team designing and launching their own satellites for a high-tech space competition

Áilín Quinlan chats to one of the school teams designing and launching their own satellites for a Europe-wide high-tech space competition

An award-winning satellite has been designed, built and launched by a bunch of teenagers — who also managed to fit the whole thing into a Coke can. Three students spent months designing their sophisticated machine which boasts not only its own GPS to facilitate guided landing, but efficiently records temperature and air pressure.

Daniel Pogosyan, Adam Murphy and James O’Shaughnessy from Glanmire Community College in Cork have been chosen to represent their county in a nationwide space project in which teams of second-level students are competing to design, build and test the best mini-satellite or CanSat which can fit into a soft drinks can.