The Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio (OSCAR 1) is world first amateur, civilian, private, non-government spacecraft. It was built in garages of project team members, using for the most part “components off the self” (COTS). Without counting donations of materials, the total cost of the satellite, that replicated the functionality of Sputnik 1, was $64 (or today $529). It was world's first piggyback satellite, the first to be ejected as a “secondary payload.” It was used as ballast, in place of the weights necessary for balancing the payload in the rocket stage

Launch date: December 12, 1961
Satellite Catalog No: NORAD ID 214
Int'l Designator: COSPAR 1961-034B
Aplication: Amateur Radio
**Tags: Space Nanosatellite HamRadio COTS