The Mojave, California based company is planning to start sending NEPTUNE 30 rockets into low-earth orbit, and they’ll sell you a spot on board for a relatively cheap price. Here’s CEO Randa Milliron on how this works:
The scenario goes like this: the builder pays IOS $US8000 for the kit/launch combo, builds the kit, sends IOS the completed satellite for testing, inspection, and integration into the NEPTUNE 30 rocket. It is then launched. Lift off is not via your very colorful description of candles or hot air, but with four pillars of fire generating 40,000 pounds of thrust. It launches into a circular 310km polar low-earth-orbit (LEO) from the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga.
When a person buys a kit, ideally he or she has an experiment, task, performance, or other use in mind for the satellite. It’s really for people with a good set of electronics and programming skills, or for those who want to learn and prove their skills in the field. It can be used as a team building exercise or a solitary triumph. It’s the ultimate educational tool that allows the user to do real space-based orbital science at what are (comparatively) dollar store prices. Somehow, the bragging rights of being able to say, “I just sent my first satellite to space and it said hello to me!” are a far better return on investment than most other purchase options.
Sounds interesting! Whether or not this will all actually, you know, happen, remains to be seen. [H+ Magazine via Boing Boing]
matt
Sunday, September 27, 2009 at 10:59 AMthat is freaking sweet!!! I know what I’d do,
I’d make my own free wireless internet, a satellite wireless lan linking where ever I was to my home, where my files and lanline internet are.
oh, and some sort of dooms day device.
Kevin Russell
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 12:16 AMI dunno about internet, it’d flash past the point in the sky where your dish was aimed too quickly to download any useful amount of data. You could hook up a camera and take some sweet pics from that orbit though!
Ozidrummer
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 8:35 PMIt looks like a new kind of scam like the Nigerian credit card scam stuff. People be careful where you tread!
Ryan
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 5:46 PMBtw, the satellite is put into polar orbit, so it rotates from pole to pole as the earth turns. This means the chances you will actually have to contact the satellite will be few and far between. Also, it can only weigh .75 kg, and it starts of at .50, leaving only 250 grams for your experiment.
Finally, it only lasts for 3 – 12 weeks before burning up…$8000 is a lot of money for 12 weeks.
but if you could stick a powerful camera/ lens into it, you could take some pretty cool pics of the earth, or even space.