After spending many years working on own DIY sputnik, 34-year-old South Korean artist Song Ho-jun, has made a satellite at home. This homemade satellite is supposed to be the first satellite completely built by an individual. Ho-jun is planning to launch his homemade satellite into orbit, later this year.
Song Ho-jun is a media artist, residing in South Korea. He was once an engineering student at a university. He had traction to play with technology and turn them into art pieces. During university period, Song regularly incorporated technology into his art pieces. After working as an intern at a private satellite company, he came up with the idea for his “Open Satellite Initiative”. To make the Open Satellite Initiative he needed some information and experts advice/opinion. So, he contacted space professionals from Slovenia to Paris.
Song had a small electronics business. To run the business, he got help from his parents. By utilizing his knowledge and gathering information from the internet, Song spent nearly six years to build his homemade satellite – OpenSat (Open Satellite).
OpenSat is cubical in shape. It weighs 1kg and measures 10 cubic centimetres. The components used to build the homemade satellite cost 500,000 won ($440).
OpenSat can send information on how it’s functioning like the status of the battery and temperature and rotation speed of the satellite’s solar panel. Once OpenSat is placed in the orbit, radio operators will be able to communicate with it from earth stations. If nothing goes wrong, then the satellite will send messages via Morse code using its LED lights.
A French technology company NovaNano has decided to launch OpenSat into the orbit. Designer Song Ho-jun will sign a contract with NovaNano. It’ll take around 120 million won ($104625)to launch it into the space. The OpenSat will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in December with another satellite.
Source : Telegraph
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