Launch Your Own Personal Satellite

By Dan Smith Posted 08.03.2009 at 3:45 pm 5 Comments

TubeSat: My First Satellite

Ever wanted to launch your own satellite into low earth orbit, then track it on ham radio for a few weeks before it burns up on re-entry? Well, 52 years after the launch of Sputnik, you can. Interorbital Systems is offering YOU the chance (by the end of 2010) to send up a TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit for the low introductory price of just $8,000.

The TubeSat kit is packed with batteries and solar panels and transmitters and antennas and a bevy of other tools, to help you run experiments in space on your own. The company even suggests what sorts of experiments you could run, from biological experiments to email hosting to some sort of "on-orbit advertising." You can even order your TubeSats in double, triple, and quadruple sizes for any extra space-advertising needs you might have.

The satellites are released into orbit from the payload of a Neptune 30 rocket, which is launched from Tonga and can hold up to 32 TubeSats. Each satellite will be time-released separately so they don't bunch up in space.

What would you do with your personal satellite?

[Space Fellowship]

Previous Article: The Massive Ordnance Penetrator Will Be the Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb Ever

Next Article: New System To Allow For Automated Predator Drone Landings

Want to read more articles on the military, aviation, and space? Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!

5 Comments

Link to this comment

skillet

08/04/09 at 9:33 am

If they could incorporate this into one of my wireless com courses I might actually go to class. It's a great idea for educational opportunities.

Link to this comment

researchone23

08/04/09 at 9:34 am

Hey, can ya put that thing on the dark side of the moon for me, with a camera? OK Instead while your riding by- can you retrieve some of the vapor trail behind a passenger plane please? Then test it please? No one has ever done that yet either...

Link to this comment

Fedaykin

08/04/09 at 1:05 pm

Camera is a must. How else will the aliens wave at me?

Link to this comment

beantown179

08/04/09 at 9:17 pm

So an email or file server that sits in space. Who has legal jurisdiction over this?

Link to this comment

quasi44

08/10/09 at 8:34 pm

well, beantown, from what I've read the jurisdiction and responsibility for damage is on the owner, and the launch agency, and the nation, in that order.