Minisatellites for all budgets, the next space revolution - CNN

Vienna. (EFE). – If you are passionate about the Universe but lacks the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost tickets for future space tourist , the sooner you can rent for $ 250 per week (about 185 euros at current exchange rates) a small satellite with Spanish technology . From 2014, this will be possible thanks to two tiny satellites equipped with an open-source processor and a dozen sensors including camera, gyroscope and spectrometer, as well as radiation and temperature gauges.

“It’s a democratization of access to space,” he told Efe in Vienna on Austrian Peter Platzer, director of the company that launched the project, NanoSatisfi, based in Silicon Valley (USA)

In principle, business purpose is the education community: a university or college can rent the satellite for $ 250 to experiment for a week and analyze data for a semester, through the company website. But the original project is that nothing prevents amateur astronomers, photographers or simple love of adventure renting space satellites to give vent to their curiosity. Whether detect meteors, weather phenomena observed from space or build a 3D model of Earth’s magnetic field, the possibilities are enormous.

low cost, the use of open source technology and some of the money comes from micromecenazgos through internet are other innovative aspects of the space adventure.

Making

launch and operate each of these two satellites called ArduSat-one measures 10 by 10 inches and the other 10 by 30 inches, costs much less than a million dollars. And the costs will fall significantly in the future, made a large number of them at the same time, because the company aims to create a network of up to 200 of these small devices orbiting the Earth. “This contrasts with the value of hundreds of millions of dollars from a conventional satellite,” says the entrepreneur.

These first two will low cost satellites into space on November 20 from the International Space Station, the human project most expensive in history, with some 150,000 million dollars invested.

Although technology has changed much in the last 50 years, any smartphone has more computing power than the entire Apollo mission carried the first man on the moon-in the space industry still promote “huge projects, expensive, and they need a long time of development, “he explains.

also cofounder NanoSatisfi think your mini-satellite network can have many other uses, such as guarding illegal arms trafficking or in some areas.

90% of world trade, according Platzer, is carried by sea, so that some companies may be interested to follow their loads from space or calculate efficient routes to spend less energy fleet. You can also provide on-demand weather forecasts very accurately for a given site, which can be very useful, for example, to ski resorts.

satellites are also equipped with a sensor to measure space radiation, which in the future may warn of upcoming solar storms, “one of those phenomena that people are not aware,” he warns.

Platzer

argues that if reoccur today most solar magnetic storm on record, dated in 1859 and christened scientists Carrington, the losses would be in the tens of billions of dollars. “Our network of satellites could help understand solar storms and develop an early warning system,” he says about a phenomenon that can damage electronic equipment, of which increasingly depends more.

Precisely

responsible for developing the radiation measurement sensor has been the Spanish company Libelium. David Gascon, co-founder and head of R & D of that company Zaragoza has Efe that the project quickly attracted them by the use of free software and hardware, a field in which experienced treasure.

business space adapted for radioactivity sensor developed after the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 and has become popular in Japan for its ease of use and low price, about 100 euro.

Gascón

indicates that your company try to “democratize access to complex technologies”, a philosophy that matches the minisatellite project, with which they will continue to work. In summarizing the advantages of open source technology, said: “People can build the satellite at home, as we have done, and give you the information so they can study how they have done.”