50 'Nanosats' for Sputnik's 50th Anniversary

Roland Piquepaille writes "Europe will launch 50 ultra-small satellites in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite of the Earth launched in October 1957. BBC News Online writes that each nanosatellite will weigh only about 1 kilogram and represent a single nation. Arianespace will launch all 50 of the nanosats in a single payload. The nanosats will stay in orbit for about 2 years and will perform experiments chosen and designed by each individual country. For the first time in history, 50 different countries will have the opportunity to do space research, and probably at little cost. In the future, similar clusters of nanosats could be launched for collaborative missions, acting as groups or swarms and having a single goal. Read more for selected excerpts and pointers to this future historic mission."

Comments

New article about Roland Piquepaille

[Da_Biz]

Da_Biz Writes: "Exciting new articles from Roland Piquepaille enrich the lives of Slashdot readership. It's been known for a long time that his postings are notable for links to a website that provide summaries that a four year old could have written, as well as an opportunity to drive traffic to advertisers on his page. How does he do it? Where does he get the balls to quote large quantities of an article, while providing little to no opposing or insightful opinions? What is the history behind his methods? Read on for more details!"

for all their whining about social causes

[ChipMonk]

I would think Europeans would be the last to send up more space junk for no reason other than to celebrate. Why don't they take their space tech and put it to good human-oriented causes, like curing cancer and fixing the mess the USA supposedly caused in Baghdad?

(Go ahead, mark me a troll. I just had to get that off my chest.)