As a child, I always looked up at the stars and wondered how I could make it into space. Hopefully, I will live to see that day, but for now, a homemade satellite will have to do. The Nanosatisfi team has made it their mission “to provide affordable space exploration for everyone!,” and with ArduSat, they move one step closer to reality. ArduSat is a Arduino-controlled miniature 10cm cubic satellite, weighing 1 kg, which is roughly equivalent to half a store bought loaf of bread. Its size might not be impressive, but it packs over 25 sensors including: Myspectral’s open source spectrometer, inertial measurement unit, magnetometer, along the standard set, and many others. This impressive little machine boasts a camera to take photographs, it could send messages back to earth, or it can run your space experiments. With the ability to upload code directly to the ArduSat while in space, the possibilities are virtually limitless.
Be sure to check out their YouTube Channel for more technical details. You can also support their efforts via their Kickstarter page .
28 thoughts on “Homemade Satellites are Just Around the Corner”
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Absolutely amazing! Thank you. I had thought for a while now about mini fighters, space station’s, ships, and moon bases etc in space controlled by virtual reality gear on earth so you feel like your actually there with the rest of your fellow space travellers… Expensive habit, years away and a little bit farfetched I know, but this post is the first one I have seen about an open source opportunity to work together and build a satellite! This will link on to other things as our knowledge will grow and more people will know about it. Long live open source!
Maybe there are other open source projects out there but the Internet is so big it is difficult to find, for me anyway. I hope that people read this and can be inspired at how far we can actually go to achieving what we only dreamed of using our ideas to integrate the technologies of today into other new ideas. The list is endless..that’s why it’s so exciting!
Iso in my lifetime I see us doing amazing things with technology. Especially with people from everywhere chipping in to make it all happen.
So there you go…step by step this satellite will go forward and hopefully become something epic baby. Also, I don’t know how much I can assist on this but I am learning all the time and will follow and try and understand everything as it comes my way.
Ugh…nuff said!
Thanks Jonny, the first portion of your comment reminds me of Ender’s Game just a tad. Also in issue 24 of MAKE magazine we have CubeSat on the cover, which is a NXT controlled satellite. With space tourism just around the corner, I see personal satellites in our future.
Thanks for posting! We’re super excited about this!
Jeroen, ArduSat engineer
Well, sounds exciting but have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
Is it really needed to add more to this just because we can?
The satellite will re-enter in less than two years because of its low orbit. Also because of that we are lower than most satellites, reducing chances on space trash, which we don’t want!
As small as this is, how difficult is it to track? I’d imagine an occupied spacecraft smacking in to one of these at orbital velocities might cause some problems.
It’s is large enough to be trackable. Also, we are in a lower orbit than most spacecraft to mitigate exactly that possibility.
IIRC the threshhold for damage is considerably lower than this – on the order of screws and paint chips. I’m glad to see this is intended for very low orbits to avoid the debris problem, but still worry about the potential for these to collide and create a new, lower layer of debris.
Regardless, this is an exciting effort – can’t wait to see how this plays out!
Super exciting.
[…] the piece Homemade Satellites are Just Around the Corner, Jonny says: Absolutely amazing! Thank you. I had thought for a while now about mini fighters, […]
Good luck with the project. I wished Make would find a way to include a bit of history in their articles Of course satellites that are “homemade” in this manner have been around for decades. Hopefully ArduSat will take its place in the history of amateur satellites, but a nod should be given to what has preceded it. Really doesn’t take much to to that
This is a great article for me to read. thank you
Encore merci. J’attend avec impatience la suite. A bientôt.