Cheap access to experiments in space
JUN 21, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026117
Kickstarter : Physicist Peter Platzer and two engineering colleagues are building a 4-inch cubic satellite called Ardu, which is designed to carry hobbyist processors into space and run citizen-written programs. The satellite is the first of a series of affordable space-based platforms that the team hopes to build. The craft has more than 25 sensors attached, including a magnetometer, a spectrometer, and a Geiger counter. To raise the $35,000 required to build and launch Ardu, the team is using the crowd-sourced funding website Kickstarter. For $325 you can buy three days of experiment time on the satellite, or for $150, pick the locations of at least 15 pictures taken from space. So far the Ardu team has raised $32,000. Testing of the satellite will be completed by early 2013, with a launch scheduled sometime in the 12 months afterwards.
More about the authors
Paul Guinnessy, pguinnes@aip.org
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
