We’ve written about the Interorbital Systems TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit before, an $8K DIY satellite kit. The ever-vigilant Brian Jepson spotted a story about astronomer Alex “Sandy” Antunes’ Project Calliope. Sandy is using the TubeSat kit to create an “ionospheric detector for transmitting sonifiable data back to Earth for web streaming and remixing.” Wha? Basically, his sat will be recording various datastreams (e.g. magnetic field, temperature, light) within the ionosphere (upper part of the atmosphere) and sending it back to Earth as MIDI data that musicians and hobbyists can monkey around with.The NPR story linked below does a nice job of introducing Sandy and his project. [Thanks, Brian!]
BTW: Sandy Antunes is a fascinating guy. In addition to being a professional astronomer and science writer, he’s also written for the RPG industry. He wrote Miskatonic University (hey, I think I have that in my attic!), a supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Rules to Live By (a LARPing book), and other titles. He was also the editor-in-chief of Metagame Magazine (I definitely have those in my attic!).
Project Calliope
DIY Satellites Let You Find Your Own Space [NPR piece]
More:
$8,000 DIY satellite kit
Check out MAKE Volume 24:
MAKE blasts into orbit and beyond with our DIY SPACE issue. Put your own satellite in orbit, launch a stratosphere balloon probe, and analyze galaxies for $20 with an easy spectrograph! We talk to the rocket mavericks reinventing the space industry, and renegade NASA hackers making smartphone robots and Lego satellites. This, plus a full payload of other cool DIY projects, from a helium-balloon camera that’s better than Google Earth, to an electromagnetic levitator that shoots aluminum rings, and much more. MAKE Volume 24, on sale now.
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