There seems to be quite a few Kickstarter projects running at the moment, and today we have come across one such project that might interest people who own a smartphone or tablet, and love to get into space exploration. The project we have for your consideration today is called SkyCube, which is a nano-satellite that takes pictures from space, and allows anyone with their mobile app to view those pictures.
The people behind SkyCube are the makers of the SkySafari astronomy app for Android, Mac and iOS, and are now developing the SkyCube along with mobile apps to go with it. SkyCube is a 10 x10 x10cm ‘1U’ CubeSat that they intend to launch as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next year, which will orbit the Earth more than 300 miles up, and pass over most of the globe’s inhabited areas.
Apparently the nano-satellite will snap low-resolution images along with broadcasting messages that have been uploaded by sponsors, and after a 90-day period SkyCube will deploy a 10-foot reflective balloon that can be seen by eye, and the balloon will eventually be used to drag SkyCube down from orbit.
Those sponsored messages will be broadcast every 10-seconds as data pings (tweets from space), and will be detectable by anyone that has inexpensive radio equipment, but you don’t need anything other than an internet connected smartphone or web browser to receive the SkyCube messages.
Obviously the best way to find out all about SkyCube is for the makers to tell you themselves, thus we have a short video letting you know all about the project below, so make sure you hit that play button and check it out.
Currently the SkyCube project has a funding goal of $82,500, and has thus far managed to garner $4,364 in pledges with 55 days to run. So if you think this project is something that you would like to be involved in, you can make a pledge by hitting up Kickstarter.
