Looks like Creator Hojun Song isn’t the only one with dreams of launching his own satellite into space and making that technology available to everyone. You’ve already heard about Song’s Open Source Satellite Initiative, a project in which Song hopes to collaboratively build and launch a DIY satellite into orbit and then manufacture kits for distribution of home satellite assembly. It would appear, however, that the folks from Interorbital Systems beat him to it.Interorbital recently announced the TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit which, for the “bargain price” of $8,000, will enable you to build your own satellite and includes the price of a launch into Low-Earth-Orbit on an IOS NEPTUNE 30 launch vehicle. The devices are designed to orbit the earth for a few months before safely re-entering the atmosphere and burning up so as to prevent them from becoming orbital debris. The TubeSat is essentially a smaller version of the CubeSat, itself a miniature satellite developed for research purposes on university campuses the world over.The TubeSat also allows the builder to add his or her own experiment or function to the basic TubeSat Kit. Examples of add-on experiments or applications include the following:- Earth-from-space video imaging
- Earth magnetic field measurement
- Tracking migratory animals from orbit
- On-orbit advertising
- Space art
- Space burialsAlthough the TubeSat is scheduled to make it’s orbital debut early 2011, we think we’ll hold out for Song’s version just the same (which is scheduled to launch in September 2011). Song’s OSSI version promises to also release DIY kits at a much more palatable rate of $200 a satellite — a mere fraction of the TubeSat price — because the open source nature of the project makes it infinitely more affordable. Since both projects are still so new and experimental, it looks like this space race is still anybody’s game.
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- Earth magnetic field measurement
- Tracking migratory animals from orbit
- On-orbit advertising
- Space art
- Space burialsAlthough the TubeSat is scheduled to make it’s orbital debut early 2011, we think we’ll hold out for Song’s version just the same (which is scheduled to launch in September 2011). Song’s OSSI version promises to also release DIY kits at a much more palatable rate of $200 a satellite — a mere fraction of the TubeSat price — because the open source nature of the project makes it infinitely more affordable. Since both projects are still so new and experimental, it looks like this space race is still anybody’s game.