SpaceDev [SPDVE] and Wireless Future Inc. announced March 28 that they jointly will develop and market a next-generation, miniaturized, low-cost STDN- compatible transponder (the MST-21), for use on government and commercial lunar and Earth-orbiting missions.

The first MST-21 will fly on the CHIPSat spacecraft currently under development by SpaceDev for the University of California Berkeley. CHIPSat is scheduled for launch in the spring of 2002 from Cape Canaveral on a Boeing [BA] Delta 2 launch vehicle.

The MST-21 also can be used for a variety of other missions, including SpaceDev’s proposed live, streaming video lunar entertainment and science orbiter, and for its planned commercial near-Earth asteroid exploration mission.

Specified by SpaceDev to be fully compatible with NASA’s worldwide Space Tracking and Data Network (STDN), and with commercial ground station providers with STDN capability, the MST-21 weighs just under 1 kg, and measures only 17 x 11 x 5 cm (about 7 x 4 x 2 inches).