Orbit Your Own Satellite For $8,000

RobGoldsmith sends word of Interorbital's TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit, which allows anyone to send a half-pound payload to low-earth orbit for $8,000. Your satellite will fly to orbit from Tonga atop an Interorbital Systems NEPTUNE 30 rocket along with 31 other TubeSats. It will function for several weeks, then its orbit will decay and it will burn up in the atmosphere. Interorbital plans to send up a load of 32 TubeSats every month. If you pay in full in advance, you get slotted onto a particular scheduled launch. Here are Interorbital's product page and brochure (PDF).

Comments

I forsee

[$RANDOMLUSER]

A big new trend for "burials in space".

Pirates in Space!

[Anonymous Coward]

Low earth orbit is above the law, literally, isn't it? Send up a few gigabytes of flash memory and a transmitter. Torrents from space!

Re:Pirates in Space!

[rm999]

If it's bit torrent with enough people in the swarm, each person only needs to download a small part of the file, and then share that part with everyone else.

Re:Pirates in Space!

[fractoid]

Low earth orbit is above the law, literally, isn't it? Send up a few gigabytes of flash memory and a transmitter. Torrents from space!

Maybe not so practical for your run-of-the-mill movie downloads, but for *very* sensitive political stuff, the sort of thing that tinfoil-wearing X-Files enthusiasts can only dream of proving, I can definitely see it being the go.

That, or just use it to screw with SETI. ;)

Commercial applications

[JoshuaZ]

The sign that a technology has really matured enough to be taken seriously is when it starts to have commercial applications. Moreover, the presence of businesses like this will help provide further incentive for the improvement of space related technologies.

However, it isn't clear to me who would use a half-pound satellite that can only last a few weeks. TFA lists the following possible applications:

Earth-from-space video imaging. Earth magnetic field measurement. Satellite orientation detection (horizon sensor, gyros, accelerometers, etc.). Orbital environment measurements (temperature, pressure, radiation, etc.). On-orbit hardware and software component testing (microprocessors, etc.). Tracking migratory animals from orbit. Testing satellite stabilization methods. Biological experiments. On-orbit advertising. Private e-mail

Honestly, I don't see much use of most of those as a general use. Certainly scientists will benefit from this sort of technology but I doubt anyone would try to use this for private e-mail systems. You would just use the internet and encrypt your stuff. The idea of using this sort of thing for low cost climate and weather data gathering is interesting. I suspect that as with many technologies, new uses will be developed that we cannot easily anticipate now that the technology is still young.

I Call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

32 satellites at $8K each is only $256,000. Subtract the cost of the materials used to build the satellites. (I'm assuming they're not using class S parts, but solar panels, etc still ain't cheap.) They're seriously planning to deploy a working delivery system to space for that kind of money?

Re:I Call BS

[BuR4N]

They seem to base their ideas on what the OTRAG project tested and worked on in the late 70s. The idea is that the rocket is made up of inexpensive paralell coupled "segments".

The idea behind the OTRAG design was that if each segment where identical, the manufacturing process could be streamlined to a very cost effective level, much like how cars are made.

More on the OTRAG project here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTRAG
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/otrag.htm

CO2 cartridges to break earth's orbit?

[Hadlock]

How many high pressure CO2 cartridges can you fit in one of those, and would they provide enough thrust to get your device out of earth's orbit? Maybe stick it in a figure 8 orbital pattern between the moon and earth, or shoot it off towards Mars. I would imagine you need substantially less thrust to break from earth's orbit for a lowly half-pound payload than say, a space shuttle, not to mention, the pressure differential is substantially greater.

Re:CO2 cartridges to break earth's orbit?

[Hadlock]

Hmm I looked at this some more. It looks like there is only a 2,900 joule requirement to leave earth's orbit from LEO for a 1kg object. So you're looking at 1450 joules to leave earth's orbit at full weight; a CO2 cartridge provides about 150 joules of energy. You should be able to fit at least three CO2 cartridges in that canister, so you're already 40% of the way to deep space exploration using off the shelf technology! Plus each cartridge uses 12g of CO2, so the probe becomes lighter as it uses it's fuel. 60g of liquid oxygen/hydrogen peroxide should be enough to slingshot the probe around the moon towards the planet of your choice.
 
The PDF says you can link up to 4 of these together; in theory you could have two pressurized canisters of fuel, one canister functioning as the nozzle and flight computer, with the fourth canister holding your scientific instrument payload.

Cheaper "Memorable" Options

[Narnie]

Hmm... I think there's some cheaper "memorable" options out there.

Option 1 (Daddy is Forever)
~1000USD to be cremated and then ~8,000USD** to be pressed into a half-carat loose diamond.

Option 2 (Daddy was an Astronaut-Burnt-Up-on-Reentry)
~1000USD to be cremated and then ~8000USD to be shot into space.

**ashes to diamonds