Following is extracted from SpaceNews for 29th May (by G3RWL):

* PANSAT NEWS *
===============
The Petite Amateur Navy Satellite (PANSAT) is a small, spread-spectrum communication satellite developed 
by the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) as an educational project for officer students.  PANSAT will be a 
tumbling spacecraft with a weight of 150 pounds to be completed in 1996.  PANSAT will most likely be launched 
from the Space Shuttle by means of the HitchHiker program.  The launch will place PANSAT in a Low Earth Orbit 
(LEO) with an inclination of at least 28 degrees.  The spacecraft will supply direct-sequence, spread-spectrum 
modulation with an operating center frequency of 436.5 MHz, a bit rate of 9600 bits per second and 4 MB of 
message storage.  Amateur radio ground stations will be able to utilize PANSAT for store-and-forward communication.
Through use by the amateur radio community PANSAT will supply a means to demonstrate spread-spectrum 
communications.  In addition, PANSAT provides many potential applications for low-cost communications.  
The low probability-of-intercept would be an important feature for the military in downed-pilot-rescues.  
The pilot could obtain his/her location through a GPS system and uplink the information to the orbiting satellite 
at low risk.  Examples of civilian uses include emergency rescue and communication to remote areas.
To prepare the spacecraft for flight it will undergo functional and environmental testing at the system and 
subsystem level.  The environmental testing includes thermal vacuum, random vibration, and electromagnetic 
interference and compatibility (EMI/EMC) testing.  All testing will be conducted using NPS space test facilities.
A modified amateur satellite ground station is needed to communicate with PANSAT.  The NPS ground station utilizes 
off-the-shelf software, is microcomputer controlled, and is equipped with a spread-spectrum modem. The NPS ground 
station is similar to a typical amateur radio user station, except it has spacecraft command capability.  The NPS 
ground station is also utilized as a classroom instructional laboratory.