KickSat to launch sprites into space It’ll look like hundreds of
postage stamps fluttering toward Earth — each an independent
satellite transmitting a signal unique to the person who helped
send it to space. A Cornell-based project called KickSat is set
to launch more than 200 of these tiny satellites, nicknamed
“sprites,” into low-Earth orbit as part of a routine NASA-
administered mission in 2013 to the International Space Station.
And unlike traditional, big government space exploration,
KickSat is truly a launch by the people. Several years ago…Zac
Manchester…now a graduate student in aerospace engineering,
dreamt up the idea of crowd-sourced, personal space exploration.
He and Ryan Zhou…and Justin Atchison…designed and built a
prototype spacecraft that fits in the palm of the hand and costs
just a few hundred dollars to make. The sprites are a type of
micro-satellite called a “ChipSat…” Manchester’s goal, he says
in his blog about the mission, “is to bring down the huge cost
of spaceflight, allowing anyon