The Age of the Nano Satellite

This is so awesome. Building and deploying a satellite is now so much more accessible. Combine cheaper with open source technology, and you get brilliant educational opportunities, such as the ArduSat project mentioned earlier.

Here is the link to an article that provides an overview of the various cheap satellite technologies currently used, and some of the things getting done.

Australian ArduSat involvement by Jonathan Oxer

Jon presented an overview of the latest developments to the ArduSat project as part of his keynote presentation during linux.conf.au 2014 in Perth, Western Australia.

Jon has been hacking on both hardware and software since he was a little tacker. Most recently he’s been focusing more on the Open Hardware side, co-founding Freetronics as a direct result of organising the first Arduino Miniconf at LCA2010. His books include “Ubuntu Hacks” and “Practical Arduino“.

Jon has been variously referred to as Australia’s geekiest man and as a cyborg-in-progress. As part of his “SuperHouse” home automation series, Jon has taken keyless entry to an all new level by embedding an RFID tag into his arm using a vet’s chipping tool.

Recently he has been working on ArduSat, an Arduino based implementation of the CubeSat (10x10x10cm) satellite concept that aims to give hobbyists, students and space enthusiasts an opportunity to design and run their own experiments in space. By choosing a standardised platform based on the hugely popular Arduino hardware design, ArduSat allows anyone to develop and prototype experiments at home and in schools using readily accessible parts and all based on a simple open source software and hardware platform.

Video recording by the awesome video team @ linux.conf.au 2014