A Cornell Grad Student wants to  help you launch your own Satellite into Orbit for  $300 with KickSat. Zachary  Manchester is a Ph.D. student in Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University and president of Cornell SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space). He has worked on the development of small spacecraft called Sprites for the past three years. Zac’s goal is to democratize and expand access to space.

The KickSat  project will produce tiny printed circuit boards called Sprites which basically consist of an antenna, radio transmitters and solar cells. These tiny spacecraft will be launched into space inside CubeSat. CubeSat is a box with a spring loaded lid which will open when it receives a radio signal from the ground. Once the CubeSat’s lid opens Sprites are ejected from the cube using a spring loaded platform. The Sprites will then begin transmitting their individual radio messages back to earth. Scientist and enthusiast will be able to monitor the progress of each Sprite as it makes it’s way through space to it’s eventual, fiery doom on re-entry. Since all the Satellites only enter low earth orbit, they are should all eventually re-enter Earths atmosphere and be destroyed.

CubeSat Copyright KickSat.org

Manchester is gaining support for his project through the use of Kickstarter, (more…)