KickSat
KickSat was a
Kicksat reached its orbit and transmitted beacon signals that were received by radio amateurs.
History
The project was crowdfunded through Kickstarter.[8][9][10] The project was advertised with the goal of reducing the cost of spaceflight so that it could be affordable on an individual basis.[11][12][13][14]
Design
In its minimal configuration, each Sprite
Sprites can be organized into fleets; one of them was to be named for the British Interplanetary Society.[17] London Hackspace had begun work on its own ground station.[18]
Inaugural mission
KickSat launched on an
Other missions
Sprites were launched on board the
In 2016, the KickSat Sprite was discussed as an early-stage prototype of the interstellar probe proposed for Breakthrough Starshot.[21]
On June 23, 2017, the PSLV-C38 launch carried 31 satellites into low Earth orbit. Among them were Max Valier, built by OHB of (Germany) and Venta-1 which were carrying six sprite spacecraft as secondary payloads.[22][23]
After being shortlisted in February 2015 by NASA under its CubeSat Launch Initiative, KickSat-2 was launched aboard Cygnus NG-10 SS John Glenn on November 17, 2018.[24][25] After detaching from the ISS, the free-flying Cygnus spacecraft deployed KickSat-2 at an altitude of 300 km on February 13, 2019.[26] KickSat-2 established communication with ground controllers soon after, reporting good health despite a weaker than expected signal.[27] On March 18, 2019, KickSat-2 deployed 105 Sprites which successfully transmitted data before reentering the atmosphere.[28][29][30][31]
References
- ^ Radu Tyrsina (October 11, 2011). "KickSat to Launch Postage Stamp-sized Satellites into Space for $300". Mobile Magazine. Archived from the original on October 14, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- ^ Fish, Elizabeth (November 14, 2011). "Explore Space with a Spacecraft The Size of a Postage Stamp". Geek Tech (blog). Retrieved November 15, 2011.
- ^ Garling, Caleb (December 24, 2012). "Personal satellites that fly into space". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 26, 2012.
- ^ a b Bruce Dorminey (November 28, 2012). "First Kickstarter Funded Satellites To Launch in 2013". Forbes. Retrieved December 26, 2012.
- ^ "KickSat Has Been Deployed in Low-Earth Orbit". arrl.org. April 19, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
- ^ O'Neill, Ian (April 14, 2014). "Helium Leak Forces SpaceX Launch Scrub". news.discovery.com. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
- ^ Reyes, Matthew (April 7, 2014). "DIY Satellites: Now and Near Future | Make". Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers. Retrieved January 5, 2019.
- ^ Zachary Manchester (October 4, 2011). "KickSat – Your personal spacecraft in space!". Kickstarter. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- ^ Mark Brown (October 10, 2011). "Kickstarter project will launch hundreds of personal satellites into space". Wired UK. Archived from the original on October 1, 2015. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- ^ Wayne Hall (November 17, 2011). "An orbit of your own, "KickSat" crowdsources spaceflight". Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation. Archived from the original on November 19, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Boonsri Dickinson (October 10, 2011). "Send your own satellite into space". CNET. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ Michael Doornbos (October 21, 2011). "Evadot Podcast No. 86 – Would you like to have your own spacecraft in space? Kicksat.org says you can". Evadot.com. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Johnson, Michael; Manchester, Zachary; Peck, Mason (January 30, 2012). "KickSat.org – an open source ChipSat dispenser and citizen space exploration proof of concept mission" (PDF). Rhode-Saint-Genèse (Brussels), Belgium: Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. p. 91. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 3, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2013.
- ^ von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. "Fourth European CubeSat Symposium". Archived from the original on July 13, 2013. Retrieved July 13, 2013.
- ^ Peter Murray (October 15, 2011). "Sprites – The Computer Chip-Sized Spacecraft That Will Send You a Text Message (for $300)". Singularity Hub. Archived from the original on October 17, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- Techcrunch. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- ^ Andrew Vaudin (October 24, 2011). "Join the BIS in space". bis-space.com: Featured Articles. British Interplanetary Society. Archived from the original on December 16, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
- ^ AMSAT-UK (November 19, 2011). "London Hackspace work on HackSat1". AMSAT-UK. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ "Worldwide Launch Schedule". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved December 3, 2012.
- ^ "KickSat has reentered". Retrieved May 18, 2014.
- PopSci. Retrieved May 13, 2017.
- ^ ""Max Valier" nano-satellite successfully launched - OHB System ENG". www.ohb-system.de. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
- ^ "Ar Venta-1 palīdzību kosmosā nogādāts pasaulē mazākais satelīts KickSat | Ventspils Augstskola". July 1, 2017. Archived from the original on July 1, 2017. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
- ^ "NASA Announces University CubeSat Space Mission Candidates". NASA. February 6, 2015.
- ^ Alasdair Allan (April 13, 2015). "NASA Approves Kicksat's Tiny DIY Satellites for Second Attempt". Make. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
- ^ "NG-10 Cygnus ends post-ISS mission after deploying satellites". SpaceFlight Insider. February 25, 2019. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
- ^ "KickSat-2 is Alive and Being Tracked". www.arrl.org. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
- ^ University, Stanford (June 3, 2019). "Inexpensive chip-size satellites orbit Earth". Stanford News. Retrieved June 3, 2019.
- ^ Tavares, Frank (May 30, 2019). "What is KickSat-2?". NASA. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
- ^ "Cracker-sized satellites demonstrate new space tech". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
- ^ "KickSat-2 project launches 105 cracker-sized satellites". TechCrunch. June 4, 2019. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
Further reading
- Peter Murray (August 15, 2011). "Computer Chip-Sized Spacecraft Will Explore Space in Swarms". Singularity Hub. Archived from the original on October 26, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- Jim Waymer (May 13, 2011). "Cornell mini-satellites to ride on shuttle". The Ithaca Journal. Ithaca, N.Y. p. A1.
- Charles Q. Choi (April 29, 2011). "Cracker-size satellites to launch with Space Shuttle Endeavour". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- Paul Gilster (April 28, 2011). "Tiny Spacecraft Point to Future Sails". Tau Zero Foundation. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- IEEE. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- Discovery Communications. Archived from the originalon October 14, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- Clay Dillow (April 28, 2011). "Cornell's Thumbnail-Sized Satellites Are Headed to Space, Could Soon be Bound for Saturn". popsci.com. Popular Science. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- Elizabeth Simpson (April 27, 2011). "Chip satellites – designed to blow in the solar wind – depart on Endeavour's final launch". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved December 6, 2012.
- Caleb Garling (December 24, 2012). "Personal satellites that fly into space". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
External links
- "Space Systems Design Studio". Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Cornell University College of Engineering. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
- "Kicksat – The First Personal Satellite – Interview with inventor Zac Manchester" (video). buzzumi. January 10, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
- Maria Minsker (January 25, 2012). "Grad Student Launches Personal Satellites". The Cornell Daily Sun. Ithaca, NY. Retrieved January 25, 2012.
- Zac Manchester; Michael Romanko; Rob Schwartz. "KickSat @ GitHub". GitHub. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012.
- Anne Ju (December 5, 2012). "Crowd-funded, DIY spacecraft to float into low-Earth orbit". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved December 6, 2012.
- Anne Ju (December 5, 2012). "Cornell's KickSat to launch sprites into space". Ithaca Independent. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 6, 2012.
- Kelvin Long (January 2, 2013). "Project KickSat Update". British Interplanetary Society. Archived from the original on March 27, 2013. Retrieved January 6, 2012.
- Zac Manchester (December 12, 2011). "The Sprite Project: Satellite on a Chip". Engineering Colloquium. Greenbelt, Maryland: Goddard Spaceflight Center. Retrieved July 27, 2013.; presentation here: [1]