Pi Cubed
In the not too distant future the Raspberry Pi will take off from its humble beginnings on this planet and make a voyage into space. We review the CubeSat Project and talk to Patrick Stakem, an educator and pioneer of open source in space.
The CubeSat Project creates launch opportunities for schools
Lead Image © Oleksiy Tsuper , 123RF.com
CubeSat is a set of open source specifications [1] defining a launchable satellite for use in space exploration and experimentation. The basic one-unit (1U) CubeSat [2] is 10x10x10cm (1 liter) and no more than 1.33kg [3]. The specifications, set forth in 1999 by Cal Poly and Stanford universities (California), are designed to simplify the process and lower the cost of putting projects in space with the use of off-the-shelf electrical components.
Many academic institutions, governments, and corporations support and use CubeSat [4]. Until recently, home-brew or expensive closed source hardware, along with closed and open source software [5] [6], powered many projects, but in late 2013, the Kickstarter project ArduSat [7] launched a CubeSat with Arduino components and a number of sensors, all controlled by a special open source SDK [8] designed for ArduSat experiments.
CubeSat also is a useful educational framework that provides a limiting form factor and thus allows the student to push the boundaries of what might be possible once basic principles have been learned. Students and developers can envisage a project, progress to the next level of engineering design, then take the steps to make their concept a reality.
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