Tags: NASA, SpaceX, Cubesat, Nanosatellite
Publication: Forbes.com
Publication Date: 11/28/2012

ChipSat’s composition. Image credit: Zachary Manchester

The first satellites funded by a Kickstarter campaign are getting ready for their scheduled launch in September 2013. ChipSats are free-flying microsatellites approximately the size of two postage stamps.

Created by students at Cornell University, ChipSats will serve a variety of functionalities but most of them will send a beacon signal, similar to what the Sputnik used to do. The ultimate goal is to create a ChipSat sensor cloud to collect data from Earth’s orbit.

The 250 satellites were in part funded through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, with a total of $70,000 in contributions in 60 days. However, the total cost for the project is an estimated $300,000. The rest of the costs are being covered through NASA’s educational launch program.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 will take the ChipSats into LEO in its third resupply mission to the International Space Station. The satellites will travel inside a CubeSat, which will deploy them through a spring-loaded system, similar to a jack-in-the-box; the Chip Satellites will then float in space on their own.

The mission will use CDMA cell phone technology to allow all the satellites to communicate to a central ground station at the same time. ChipSats’ mission is expected to last two weeks, after which they will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

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