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DIY Space Satellite May Be in Your Future With Open Source Guide

by Caleb Johnson on May 1, 2010 at 03:00 PM

Have you ever dreamed of launching something into space? If so, a satellite engineer claims it's more of a possibility than you might think. According to Make, Song Hojun created an affordable do-it-yourself satellite system and wrote a book, available on Google Books for free, that tells other amateur space enthusiasts how to do the same thing.

We won't bore you with the nuts-and-bolts of the cube-shaped satellite. But what we do find most interesting is how you communicate with it once it's in orbit. Hojun programmed an iPod to sync with a portable radio and a homemade antenna. So while your friends are using their iPods to listen to Lady GaGa, you could be using yours to follow a hunk of metal orbiting the Earth.

The project, dubbed the Open Source Satellite Initiative (OSSI), would still need to piggyback on a ship destined for outer space. Hojun includes a drawing of the cube strapped to a crudely illustrated rocket to make this point, but with the space-tourism industry moving forward, a lift to the cosmos might not be as D.I.Y. as you think. [From: Make and D.I.Y. Satellite, via: PSFK]

Tags: diy, flight, iPod, open source satellite initiative, opensource, OpenSourceSatelliteInitiative, radio, satellite, song hojin, SongHojin, space, top

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