Too bad it only stays up there for a few months. For a simple application that would end up costing $24,000 per year if it stays up for 4 months at a time. Also not knowing when it's going to fall means it will not be a great continuous service. For small experiments though this is perfect.

Or some wonderful redundancy and on-demand service increases, depending on how you look at it.

Any solar hackers out there? I wonder if you could extend that lifetime at all - that's like a bonus experiment on top of whatever else you're doing.

frankly, 24k still sounds like a bargain for a satellite in space!

Counting down to seeing this as a nerd marriage proposal

Here were I live in South Africa we have probably the most expensive broadband internet in the world. This mainly because there are only two licensed telecommunications providers whom have access to the only two international internet links from here.

We already have a Wireless User Group, a free community based wireless network in some of the major cities. http://www.wug.za.net/ My first thought when I read this was if it would be possible to create a private satellite internet connection to the rest of the world. Without knowing the technical details, I would guess that this is probably not feasible though. Although it would be pretty cool!

Sorry, you would need a satellite in geosynchronous orbit to do this. And $8k satellite will get you an orbit of 192 miles above the earth. Geosynchronous orbits are over 22000 miles above the earth.

Reminds me of an academic project I ran across once that has had a mixed record of success ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat

Now, we just need a super-villain-like plan.

All it needs is this:

http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/Elite_Pro-89-37.html

and a suitable targeting system of course.

Oh my. Do you have one? Just lost a chunk of time. I had no idea these "laser pointers" existed. $2k for a 1W handheld?! Stay away from the forums - this is a potentially expensive hobby.

I remember once my aunt's ex showing me his lab and saying if I stuck my hand in front of the laser when on - I'd get the worst possible blister-type wound (blood would boil underneath skin upon light contact).

They are illegal in the US, you should know: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_254.html

But are they illegal in space?

What's the legal status of operating a server from space? Could this be a second sealand?

uh, how to get internet?

http://interorbital.com/TubeSat_1.htm - Looks fake.

so what can you do with one?

In school, we had a group that did microgravity experiments in freefall, could be useful research applications along those lines. Although I'm not sure how much control you have over the physical satellite.

Perhaps you could do some LEO photography? I'm thinking, if this is possible, there could be some interesting mapping applications.

Give people the possibility of such small satellites, and they will find interesting applications, whatever they might be. Most probably something nobody has thought about before? Never underestimate the crowd :-)

I can imagine an increase in academic picosat projects, with these kind of prices ...

could you roll-your-own satellite broadband using this way?

The orbit geometry looks to not be compatible with that objective. A 300 km polar orbit would put it over your ground station once or twice a day for several minutes.

Could you perhaps purchase many of them? Do they all take the same orbit (useless) or could you build a small private network in space? If they can launch into even just slightly different orbits, you could dramatically improve your uptime.

This is what the irridium system does, as well as Milstar, and other commerical telecom systems. Irridium is a medium orbit, where milstar and the commercial telcom are in geosynchronous orbits. A geo satellite is typically a few thousand kg with kilowatts of power.

But for the low cost option consider how much bandwidth can the onboard transmitter they provide handle. How big will your ground station need to be in order to pick up the signal? I suspect a tracking dish and hardware will exceed $8k by at least an order of magnitude.

You get what you pay for, and for $8k I don't think you'll get the opportunity to specify your orbit.

Would adding some small booster rockets and control modules really increase the cost that much?

They probably won't let you put explosives in there. I'm sure it takes quite a bit more talent than most amateurs have to make a rocket with fuel that is safe to put aboard another rocket.

Just imagine if it'd ignite or blow up mid-flight. It'd be fatal for the whole mission.

Yes. There's not nearly enough capacity on one of those tubesats for a workable propulsion system and any kind of payload.

A lot of the cost advantages of the tubesats (which, incidentally, have never been launched) come from their standard design.

So buy two packages, put an Ion drive in one, payload in the other, have them mate in orbit.

An ion drive would be insufficient to keep it in orbit.

You don't really have room for any type of chemical engine in something this size. Typically satellites this size actually use tiny motors and electromagnets which interact with the Earth's magnetic field to orient themselves.