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% CHAPTER: Introduction
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\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:Introduction}

%What is my theme, why am I interested in it.
%State the problem, the motivation of your work, write down your
%hypotheses.
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MurSat is a sub-project of an art project in Graz, which tries to give its visitors some insight into the world of technique. The project tries to combine art and technique in an exhibition in Graz, but also through a very small satellite, also called nano-satellite or tube-sat, traveling around mother earth in a low orbit. MurSat  is also the name of this  nano-satellite, which is developed and assembled by a team of engineering students. In march 2012 the  satellite will be launched  and brought to an orbit in a distance to the earths surface of about 310 km. It will stay there for 4-6 weeks and travel at a speed of approximately 23.000 km/h. Then it will come closer to earth, loose speed and finally enter the earths atmosphere where it will burn up. During the time in orbit, it will hold radio contact with several base stations in Austria, Germany and Spain. It will also take pictures which will be sent to earth whenever the satellite passes by on of the base stations. The satellite is built up of several units.  There is a communication unit, a  house holding  unit, responsible for the electric energy on board, a main processing unit and several sensors. My tasks in this project are the development and implementation of the main processing unit. It is powered by an ARM M3 micro processor running a free real time operating system. The entire software for the main processing unit is written  in ANSI C and compiled and built using the GNU ARM tool chain running in the eclipse IDE.