The satellite has been developed by a team of volunteers from AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NL, and was assembled at ISIS in Delft.

As part of its mission, FUNcube-1 carries a materials science experiment, from which the school students can receive telemetry data and which they can compare to the results they obtained from similar reference experiments in the classroom.

[2] FUNcube-1 is equipped with a UHF to VHF linear transponder with approx 300 mW PEP output and which can be used by Radio Amateurs worldwide for SSB and CW communications during the weekends.

The FUNcube distributed ground station network (DGSN) is used in which radio amateurs receive packets and send these via the internet to the central data collection server, called the data warehouse.

To enable easy reception, one of the FUNcube team members, Howard Long G6LVB, has created a USB connected receiver called the FUNcube Dongle.