MIT Students Put Homemade Satellite Into Orbit–Cost: $150

Camera Cell Phones GPS Pictures Science — 17 September 2009
MIT Students Put Homemade Satellite Into Orbit–Cost: $150

150-dollar-space-camera

Considering that NASA’s been whining about not having enough budget for the last couple years, it really makes them look bad to discover what a couple kids from MIT did the other day.

While NASA’s assembling teams have needed millions of dollars to launch one satellite, two guys from MIT put together a satellite of their own and launched it into low Earth orbit.  Here’s how they did it:

First, they took a styrofoam beer cooler and filled it with chemical hand warmers (to keep the thing from freezing in space), a cheap camera, and a prepaid phone with GPS so they could find the thing when it was all over.  They then inflated a weather balloon with helium and launched their “satellite”.  It got so far up that it managed to take a picture of the curvature of the earth.

Talk about your fantastic homemade gadgets–kudos to two schmoes from MIT for making NASA look like a bunch of whiny embezzlers.

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  • adham

    Can this be a real trial to transfer data, Can you control the fixing point to this thing (may be satellite or flying cell phone)

  • FightingLee

    While i agree that NASA is stupid, and the crap they usually make doesnt even work a good percentage of the time, this $150 science expriment did not put anything into orbit. Putting something into orbit does not mean getting something really high. Orbit would require rotatonal velocity. So they would have had to have put the balloon into low orbit at least (probably much further than the photo shows) and then fire a rocket to put it into orbit. Its that rotational velocity that would keep the object from falling back down. This article is misleading. They put nothing in orbit, they just flew a balloon really high you moron.

  • mrp

    This is factually inaccurate. The “launch” was NOT orbital, nor even into space as the article states.
    This “near-spacecraft” was simply a weather balloon that ascended to a maximum altitude of about 40 kilometers.

    The authors should revise the article.

  • Cryptoking2991

    I stumbled across this article when i was doing my own research for making a homemade satelite. While i commend these students for achieving something inspirational, and great i must condemn whoever wrote this article. Clearly they haven't the slightest idea of what they are talking about. Making the statement that NASA are “whiny embezzlers” is appalling and ridiculous, and i would suggest they choose there words more thoughtfully in the future.

  • ben

    uh, yeah… cool, but not actually a satellite

  • ben

    uh, yeah… cool, but not actually a satellite

  • Kkkkk

    Jan née ek stem Saam ek meen dis n dom idee fok man se nou doe ding Val op iemand se kop dit sal mos Kak seer wees , lekke my Blaar