In recent years, the increasingly popular ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) movement, or the approach of ‘being your own master’, has entered a new, space phase.
More and more companies, mostly American, are offering to send you a complete package with parts to assemble a personal satellite for just $8,000, or 46,000 kuna, to your home address. Manufacturers claim that this brings space closer to school, hobbyist, and amateur researchers and engineers.
Of course, you might wonder what you would do with your own satellite, but the possibilities are indeed numerous and interesting. For example, you could track the migrations of sardines, dolphins, elephants, salmon, migratory birds, or herds of antelopes. You could despairingly monitor the relentless deforestation of the Amazon rainforest or the melting of ice masses. With information received from the satellite, you could assist under-informed municipal inspectors and tell them where new illegal waste dumps are sprouting. The satellite can send you images of cloud development, an approaching hurricane, or readings of changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. Perhaps you could gain the status of a prophet. Imagine, for instance, that on a nice sunny day you receive a message from space and suddenly tell everyone around you: ‘I have to hurry home because I need to close it thoroughly. My satellite is announcing a rapidly approaching strong storm.’
According to announcements from entrepreneurs who have raised funds for their satellite projects through crowdfunding platforms, approximately a dozen homemade satellites will be launched into space in 2013, and more and more companies are entering the market offering parts for self-construction. There is no doubt that the trend has rolled out and that it is no longer necessary to be highly educated and fortunately gifted member of the technological elite to leave a mark in the vastness of space. True, this is a poetic addition as ordinary mortals still do not have access to those expanses. More precisely, for the craftsmen who assemble satellites themselves, launches are only planned for the lower layers of orbit, but does it really need to be picky at the start?
One of the pioneers of the DIY space project is former NASA astronomer Sandy Antunes, now a professor of engineering at Maryland Capitol College, who ordered his TubeSat satellite from the California company Interorbital Systems of Mojave. The price of $8,000 includes the transport of the satellite to orbit by a ship owned by Interorbital. As soon as the satellite is in orbit, Antunes intends to use it for the artistic project ‘Calliope’.
– We think of space as a sterile environment, but it is an active environment. Around my TubeSat, when it is in space, everything will pulsate with electromagnetic energy, random solar phenomena, temperature changes… and the satellite will record all those fluctuations which I later intend to convert into sound, or literally the music of the spheres – says Sandy Antunes.
On the other hand, an application developer from San Francisco – Tim DeBenedictis’s company, whose software includes SkySafari that helps astronomers find things in the sky, has made adaptations for the CubeSat satellite set. This is produced by Pumpkin Inc., which has already sold over 300 sets. The founder of Pumpkin Inc., Andrew Kalman, has already been compared by Forbes magazine to Henry Ford, adding that this has brought the space industry closest to the homes and garages of ordinary Earthlings, just as Ford’s industrial production made the car accessible to the majority of the public.
True, a small CubeSat set costs $10,000, and DeBenedictis’s modification SkyCube currently costs $96,000, but the money is coming from sponsors funding through the Kickstarter website. Namely, SkyCube in orbit will do three things: emit sponsor messages (120 bytes each), take photographs of the Earth and send them to sponsoring mobile phones, and develop a three-meter balloon made of ‘mylar’, a special foil that reflects more than 95 percent of light. The balloon is, in fact, distributed in a deflated state within the body of the satellite, and when inflated, it will reflect light to be more visible.
– Thanks to ‘mylar’, you will be able to see the satellite from Earth, especially at dusk, with the naked eye. The best part is that you can tell everyone around you at night: ‘I put something of mine up there’ – claims DeBenedictis.
However, the first homemade satellites had to wait for heavy-lift rockets to transport them into space. SkyCube will go to space in 2013, on rockets owned by Space X, which deals with commercial space flights. True, DeBenedictis doubts that the primary intention of these rockets is hobbyist, but rather espionage, but did anyone think that with the already existing satellites and all the advanced surveillance technologies monitoring everyone and everything, along with the increasing apathetic tolerance of Earthlings to this fact, even a hobbyist satellite would not be used for, at best, voyeurism? But anyway, DeBenedictis has already left a deposit of $50,000 per flight, which will ultimately cost him $125,000.
Zac Manchester, a graduate of aerospace engineering from Cornell University, adds that there are other ways to launch your satellite into orbit. He refers to NASA’s ElaNA program, which offers a ‘lift’ for university homemade rockets. This passionate student named his project ‘KickSat’, with which he wants to send 1,000 tiny satellites called Spirits into orbit, all at once. Each ‘spirit’ is no larger than two postage stamps.
– One hundred ‘spirits’ can fit inside a CubeSat. Therefore, if sending a CubeSat into orbit costs $100,000, then it is only $1,000 per ‘spirit’ – calculated Manchester.
Finally, this price can be afforded by ordinary hobbyists, he adds. He claims that this money, with a little sacrifice and a lot of desire, can be saved by a class or school group, so satellites could be available to a completely new and curious audience.
Each ‘spirit’ has its own solar cell, radio receiver, sensors, and computer memory. Each of the ‘spirits’ will be able to send short messages – for example, the initials of its owner. In the future, Manchester is convinced, ‘spirits’ could also be equipped with sensor cameras.
However, do not drift off into the vastness of space just yet, as you might come crashing down suddenly. Most homemade satellites fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere after two weeks due to inertia. There, due to speed, they will be completely burned up, and therefore there is no fear that parts or debris will fall on someone’s head or that DIY satellites will cause pollution. Small hobbyist satellites are not only a sweet and fun toy but, evidently, also clean, at least from debris.
