Idea

Launching a Micro-Satellite

by MITCHELL HUNTER-SCULLION 15 February 2016, 20:48

Category: Employability and Personal Development

Voting closed

Likes
0 Dislikes
716090main phonesat pic2

I as President of the Aerospace and Rocketry Society seek to use University funds to launch a satellite. NASA is currently offering free access to Space for educational institutions that wish to launch their own nano-satellites: these are tiny satellites that use a smartphone as it's core. They can carry experiments such as geiger counters and that can take photographs and video footage from outer space. Apps could be designed by Computer Science students and students could watch videos of the Earth taken from Space. To launch such a satellite would cost somewhere in the vicinity of $12000-18000, yet the benefits that this could have for the profile of the university and the educational gains to be made from it will far exceed the monetary value, we would be joining an elite band of global educational institutions that have launched satellites. To date in the United Kingdom only the University of Surrey has successfully launched such a mission, with the University of Southampton having one in development. Therefore not only would we beat Oxbridge into Space but we would be cementing the University's position as a pioneer in scientific fields and foster a sense of academic excellence that would be shared by the whole university. What better way to celebrate the opening of the new sciences block?

Comments