Satellites are artificial objects that have been intentionally placed into orbit. These satellites have a variety of purposes that range from observing Earth and its movements to broadcasting telephone, radio, and internet signals around the world. When we think of them, we think of NASA, the government, and major business conglomerates that have the power to create and launch such technology. The average person is limited to what he or she can send into the sky. That is now not the case.
What started as a project to help allow graduate students to conceptualize, engineer, test, and operate spacecraft like those of Sputnik by professors of California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University in 1999, has become a widespread area of technology and movement explored around the world. The CubeSat is a type of small satellites - which can be as small as tissue boxes - that has the potential recording and broadcasting data independent of governments. Students and people everywhere have the ability to learn and create their own CubeSat through new programs and at the costs of a few hundred dollars.
What started as a project to help allow graduate students to conceptualize, engineer, test, and operate spacecraft like those of Sputnik by professors of California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University in 1999, has become a widespread area of technology and movement explored around the world. The CubeSat is a type of small satellites - which can be as small as tissue boxes - that has the potential recording and broadcasting data independent of governments. Students and people everywhere have the ability to learn and create their own CubeSat through new programs and at the costs of a few hundred dollars.
What is most notable about the CubeSat is the scope of technology through time. All it takes is a single idea or concept to be introduced into our communities and our world for that idea or concept to grow into epic proportions. What would start as the the works of an individual or a small group of people, would turn into the efforts of the world. In school, students are given projects. Many would come up with great ideas during the initial planning stages; however, a great majority of these plans are often grand and often too idealistic. The students take on more than they can handle or can achieve in the limited amount of time that they are given. What they do not realize is that they can start small. You must crawl before you can walk. You must have a prototype before a finished product. They can set the foundations for what they really want to achieve, and build upon that it.