Update at 3 p.m.: Today’s launch has been postponed until April 18. I may re-post this item after launch occurs.
A graduate student in Ithaca, N.Y., is using Texas Instruments Inc.’s technology to launch tiny spacecraft into low Earth orbit today.
Zac Manchester, 27, who is studying aerospace engineering at Cornell University, has developed tiny, inexpensive spacecraft called Sprites that are about the size of a cracker. A small satellite called KickSat will launch into space and deploy 104 Sprites into low-altitude orbit.
The KickSat mission is scheduled to launch at 3:58 p.m. CT from Cape Canaveral, Fla., after many delays. Sixteen days later, the Sprites will deploy as free-flying spacecraft. Within a week of deploying, Manchester expects all of the Sprites to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere at which point they will be vaporized. You can follow Manchester and his mission on Twitter.
Manchester and his team will track the Sprites, record their radio signals and gather data. Each Sprite includes a small device made by Dallas-based TI, sensors and solar cells to transmit real-time data, such as temperature, back to Earth.
“The goal of the KickSat mission is to show that these Sprites can survive in space, that we can talk to them and that they can be useful,” Manchester said by phone. “This is basically my Ph.D thesis.”
He had been working on the Sprites for a few years, using different semiconductors, but wanted “a very tiny, tightly integrated chip with a microcontroller and a radio. Then he found TI’s cc430 device, which combines a microprocessor with a low-power integrated radio frequency transceiver.
Once TI realized “the full potential of KickSat,” it provided more tools to help him get the project off the ground, said TI spokeswoman Whitney Jodry. Manchester also consulted with TI folks.
Manchester also hopes his project will make space missions more accessible and less expensive.
“More access to space will allow more people to get involved … [and] will open up new types of missions, such as ionospheric science,” he said. The ionosphere is the Earth’s upper atmosphere, which affects radio waves and other communications signals.
Today, it costs a few hundred thousand dollars to build and fly a small satellite, but if Manchester’s project is successful, the cost to launch a small spacecraft could be less than $1,000, he said.
Manchester funded his equipment through the Kickstarter crowdfunding site, raising $74,586 from 315 backers. He will launch KickSat — riding on a SpaceX-3 rocket — for free through NASA’s CubeSat (a small satellite) launch initiative for university projects.