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OSCAR satellites are still being launched and monitored, with a wide variety of people who are taking part in their operation and development. Most of the current interest in non-commercial private satellites (aka stuff being done by hobbyists rather than for a commercial purpose) involved development of Cubesats that allow you to literally just start to buy parts from several different component manufacturers and to build your own satellite on a shoestring budget (on the order of a few thousand dollars).

There are even companies that act like a travel agent who will find space for satellites built this way on an upcoming launch... where they take care of all of the paperwork and flight approval so the only thing you need to really do is just sign the check to get it all to happen. Since these cube sats are small and relatively lightweight (just a couple of kilograms at most), launch costs aren't even that expensive either... a few tens of thousands of dollars at most. Certainly well within the budget for a university professor and his research lab or for a amateur radio club to be able to pool their money together and purchase one of these satellites.

Kinky Stuff: HAMs and similar have successfully bounced signals off clouds/etc. using banks of IR LEDS, alongside plenty of RF-based solutions. How long until well-heeled geeks loft "low-cost" cubesats for emergency internet comms?

How about solar-powered autonomous drones (or weather balloons) with radio relays, freespace optic uplink to broadcast radio converters, or just passive radio reflectors?

This is a fascinating idea: while I like the idea of running an always-on server for teh freedomz, I don't have a clear idea of what that entails (freenet? gnutella? anyone still using these?) or how many bytes of data / "bad things" being passed through my node would just get me disconnected by my ISP under a "no servers" clause or RIAA paranoia (neither us nor you knows how many naughty files are passing over your 4096-bit AES freedomware, but your $29 a month ain't worth the liability, click...). Just as importantly, the power consumption of an always-on server that may or may not even be being used is hard to justify. A more 'standardized' software suite and micropowered "plug in and forget" computer goes a long way. As for that last part...

Ultimately this thing would have to take its activities off the ISP-dependent internet, full stop. To really be feasible, these freedomboxen would need to be coupled with inexpensive p2p (mesh networking) *hardware* as well. There are a few possible, if not ideal solutions:

Unlicensed Wifi and wifi-alikes (microwave links), as others have pointed out. Typical ranges from 10s of meters (omni wifi indoors) to hundreds of km for the suitably dedicated (highly directional point-to-point antenna links). Several existing implementations and choices of ad-hoc routing protocols (AODV, etc.).

Freespace optical links. Have a look at RONJA for a low-cost, open-source transceiver that provides 10Mbps duplex links over a km or more. Advantages: highly directional; more resistant to regulatory attack (no RF), high resistance to congestion even in extremely dense deployments. Disadvantages: Point-to-point only; more likely useful for backhaul between local onmidirectional meshes.

WiMAX: High speed, long range, but license requirement and the cost of equipment ($thousands) mostly defeats the purpose.

Kinky Stuff: HAMs and similar have successfully bounced signals off clouds/etc. using banks of IR LEDS, alongside plenty of RF-based solutions. How long until well-heeled geeks loft "low-cost" cubesats for emergency internet comms?

...you can buy cubesats off the shelf now, and for less than you might think. (Although I haven't inquired about the price for professional installation...)

It's not BS. Last I checked you could put 1 KG into LEO for $25K. http://www.cubesatkit.com/

Cubesats typically hitch a ride with larger projects for cost efficiency.

http://cubesat.ece.uiuc.edu/
http://mtech.dk/thomsen/space/cubesat.php
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/satellites/cubesats.php

The Delfi-C3 sat is relying on the Amateur Radio operators around the world to help capture telemetry and forward it to their earth station. Pretty cool, in my book.

The Delfi-C3 sat is relying on the Amateur Radio operators around the world to help capture telemetry and forward it to their earth station. Pretty cool, in my book.

There is some activity in this area already: http://cubesat.calpoly.edu/ http://www.cubesatkit.com/ And for other form factors including picosats and Mars Rover type experiments, including a shakedown launch: http://www.arliss.org/

I wonder what the possibility (probably nearly impossible?) is of taking one of these, loading it up with a very, very small webserver hardware setup with a largish hard drive (maybe the whole thing potted in epoxy with a heatsink sticking out?), a several watt 802.11g AP and antenna, then getting it put up in orbit by the Russians? I bet you could get this done for about $250,000.00 (US) if you really wanted to (for the sat, hardware, launch costs, and of course, bribes)...

I think you have to contact them directly. Pumpkin, Inc. I think the guy's name is Andrew but I don't remember for sure. I wasn't able to make the CubeSat workshop a few weeks ago, but he's usually there. The next one is in August, coinciding with SmallSat.

When's launch time?

http://littonlab.atl.calpoly.edu/ http://www.cubesatkit.com/

courtesy of Pumpkin, Inc. (makers of the Salvo RTOS)

http://www.cubesatkit.com/