Two cheaper ways to get to space

YOU CAN ALREADY BUY and name stars – one of the least romantic anniversary gifts out there, for the record – but this year two new products were released that will let you own lights in space.

Jekan Thanga, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, leads a team of students that created the Suncube Femtosat satellite (pictured above). At a tiny size of 27 cubic centimetres, it costs only about R7 000 to buy and R45 000 to send into low Earth orbit. (Companies such as Nanoracks will do the latter for you.) That’s one-fifth the cost of the cheapest spacecraft in use today. The minisatellite uses photovoltaic cells for power and has a three-megapixel camera and an eight- to thirty-two-bit processor, depending on the data computation you plan on doing.

Meanwhile, a team of researchers led by Mason Peck at Cornell University has developed Sprites, bitsy satellites about the size and shape of a cheese cracker. At about R450 apiece, Sprites include a circuit board, solar cells, radio transmitters and sensors that can detect direction and movement.

Both projects provide opportunities for exploration without extreme cost. “Right now so many people are denied the opportunity to participate in space exploration just by virtue of the cost effects,” Peck says. “With this approach, with relatively little money, you can put one of these together yourself.” Researchers will be able to send probes to previously unexplored parts of space, with very little at stake, and without the help of anyone named Musk or Bezos.