Flight International online news 15:00GMT: The European Space Agency has reported there has been no contact with the SSETI Express satellite since Friday due to a failure in the spacecraft's power system.
This, says the agency, is preventing the on-board batteries from charging, resulting in a shutdown of the satellite.
According to ESA, there is a "small but significant possibility" of recovering the satellite and the project team are carrying out tests in the hope contact can be regained.
SSETI is the first pan-European student satellite to be built and has been constructed by students from twelve different European countries, many of whom have collaborated over the Internet.
"Naturally, the SSETI teams are disappointed that we lost contact, but the mission has still been a success from both an educational and a technical standpoint", says Project Manager Neil Melville.
"The main goal of the mission was to educate students by having them involved hands-on in all the different aspects of a space mission, and now we really have experienced everything."
ROSS BENTLEY/LONDON
Source: Flight International