Kick SAT -- Tiniest and cheapest satellite ever in the history..

Zac Manchester with Kick SAT

     For the past two decades rocket science has been considered the subject of matter of top research agencies like NASA,ISRO etc..but for the first time a successful attempt has been made to design a personal satellite that too at an affordable price.    Cornell University graduate student Zac Manchester has been lent this lab to develop a revolutionary satellite named KickSat. This 30cm- (12in-)  long satellite will contain 200 even smaller satellites,called sprites. Around the size of a couple of postage stamps, these are probably the smallest spacecraft ever developed.Not only is the design of this space project unique but also the way it is being funded. Money for KickSat has been raised through the crowd-funding website kick starter and the sprites are allocated to the project’s supporters. Top firms like BBC also sponsored the project.Zac says:- “I’d like to think of it as the people’s satellite,” says Manchester. “We’re pushing towards a personal satellite, where you can afford to put your own thing in space.”

How Kick SAT will look like????

Kick SAT closer look

          

The sprites look more circuit board than satellite but despite being just 3.5 cm (1.5in) square and only a few millimetres thick, they are packed with technology. “Half the board is taken up with a solar array, then there’s a microcontroller – like a little computer,” Manchester explains, holding one of the sprites carefully between his finger and thumb. “Then we have a radio transceiver and two sensors – a magnetometer and a gyroscope.” These instruments enable the devices to sense the Earth’s magnetic field and take readings of orientation and spin. “We want to see how these come out of the mother ship, KickSat, and how they’re spinning after that.”
            This small satellites are actually carried by a mother ship which holds all the sprites and are ejected into space when once it reaches the orbit.. Mother ship is made up of three 10 cm (4in) cubed units, known as Cubesats. One of these sections will contain the control systems for the spacecraft and the remaining two will carry the sprites. KickSat is designed to be launched as a “piggyback” payload alongside another satellite and, once released into orbit, the sprites will be ejected. Manchester has used a 3D printer to create a full-sized copy of KickSat to demonstrate how it works. It looks a bit like a shoebox with a door at the end. “There’s a plunger mechanism that holds the 200 sprites in place,” he says. “When we trigger the deployment from the ground station, we’ll release the spring and the whole thing will pop out releasing the sprites into space.In order communicate with earth station it is crucial that the antennas of the Kick SAT must be launched with perfect orientation..

             This satellite is due to be launched  going to orbit along with NASA's Space X Dragon capsule this September and will be in operation for few months.This is a people satellite and once the technology is brought to public domain other people can do it their way and thus will be the beginning of a new era where you can send your own spacecraft to orbit for the price of an iPhone the day is not very long..

so,folks get ready to send your beauty into orbit soon