An orbit of your own, "Kicksat" crowdsources spaceflight

Check out the Evadot interview with Zachary Manchester, the Cornell engineer behind the successful Kickstarter project, KickSat.

Based on the "Sprites" created by Cornell (left) and mentioned here on this web site, the project gives people the chance to fly and communicate with their very own spacecraft. In typical Kickstarter fashion, participants can choose to fund a project at various financial levels, from having a name etched on the KickSat (a 1u CubeSat that will deploy the Sprites), to a getting a replica Sprite, to having a Sprite of one's own that will transmit name initials from orbit. For the coder in your life, a bigger financial commitment will get you a Sprite and a development kit so that original programming can be loaded.

Sprites will not become space junk. The program is targeting a very low altitude to ensure that the Sprites harmlessly vaporize in the upper atmosphere after a couple weeks.

I'm guessing just the memories will linger.

Wayne