Space miners went to Kickstarter
I was waiting for this news to appear on Habré, but still, so I’ll have to do it myself.
The company Planetary Resources, which proclaimed its goal of expanding the resource base of mankind at the expense of space minerals, announced its readiness to launch its first device. True, this is not yet an interplanetary harvester, but only a miniature telescope. But now everyone can make a contribution to the exploration of outer space.
Link to the promotion page: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0?ref=live
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The ARKYD-100 space telescope was presented to the public as a concept in the winter of 2013, and today the company declares its readiness to send it into space. Initially, it was stated that the army of such telescopes will go in search of the most promising asteroids, but for the first device, the creators focus on the promotion of space research, scientific work and education.
The ARKYD-100 is a small spacecraft, the main scientific instrument of which is a telescope with a mirror diameter of 20 cm and a 5 megapixel matrix. 5 megapixels for such a device is enough. The resolution of the telescope is determined by its diameter, and not the number of pixels of the matrix. For example, with Hubble, the resolution of the matrix is 16 megapixels, while the resolution of the telescope exceeds the ARKYD-100 tenfold ...
Professionals say that with an aperture of 20 cm will not be able to hunt asteroids from near-Earth orbit. But in its first project, the “miners” about the asteroids keep quiet. But they talk about beautiful images of nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, moons and explain about exoplanets, which can be found by the transit method or gravitational microlensing.
The telescope is put into orbit at an altitude of about 550 km (an altitude from 480 to 720 km is indicated, probably elliptical is assumed or they themselves do not yet know the exact height). The device can be effective for observations of neighboring planets. If it is possible to look at Venus or Mars only out of curiosity, then the observations of Jupiter and Saturn will make it possible to carry out real scientific work. ARKYD-100 will be able to monitor the giant planets, this is important for observing atmospheric processes. If you are lucky, you will be able to remove the fall of comets and asteroids. It happens to Jupiter. Here, for example, pictures of Jupiter, taken from Earth to a telescope, comparable in characteristics:
A source
The space telescope will avoid atmospheric distortion, so that the quality will be higher. From Earth, only a few telescopes are able to exceed the resolution above 1 arc-second due to turbulence.
At Kickstarter, the company requested $ 1 million. This is a serious amount, but they scored more than half in the first three days. Still, ambitious goals, competent public relations and the names of famous investors: James Cameron, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, allow you to enlist the financial support of thousands of ordinary Internet users. Now is the 17th day of the campaign and collected more than $ 900 thousand.
Despite the fact that $ 1 million is a lot of money, they are still not enough for the construction and launch of such a spacecraft. Therefore, it was built at the expense of the company. And the money collected on Kickstarter will go to pay for the launch and operation of ground services during operation.
In order to interest Internet users, Planetary Resources has come up with an interesting addition to its device: a monitor is placed on its body, and a webcam on the folding bar, which shoots the telescope itself, the monitor on it and the surrounding space. For $ 25 dollars, everyone gets the opportunity to display his photo on the monitor and take a picture of himself or pictures at will against the background of space.
The company has provided a wide range of offers for investors of various amounts. On the promotion page they are all painted, I will list the most significant ones:
$ 99 and on your behalf, scientists or students will receive 5 minutes of working time of the telescope. It seems a little, but the time of work of the main professional telescopes on Earth is painted far ahead and not everyone gets the opportunity to work. In addition, all those who support more than $ 100 automatically become for a year members of the Planetary Community - the largest and most authoritative public association of space enthusiasts headed by American scientists and popularizers of science Neil de Grass Tyson, Bill Nayi and others .
$ 200 allows you to choose the object that will be shot for you with a telescope, except for the sun. (For those who want to expose the lunar conspiracy, I warn you that from near-earth orbit even Hubble is hopelessly small in order to make out the lunar modules).
$ 450 will make three shots at their own discretion.
$ 1000 will provide an invitation to a tour of Planetary Resources, acquaintance with the management of the company and many small bonuses like a 3D telescope model and a set of posters.
A deposit of more than $ 5000 grants the right for students and scientists to work with a telescope.
There are several interests of Planetary Resources in this whole undertaking. First of all, this is a positive public relations, they will demonstrate to the world and potential investors that they are able to independently create effective spacecraft, and are interested in developing interest in space exploration and exploration. Secondly, they will conduct flight tests of their apparatus, hone its software, learn how to operate it, conduct surveys. It is now useless to search for asteroids, and to launch it into the Large asteroid belt in retrograde orbit, and it will allow to collect a huge amount of information.
Not to be unsubstantiated, I invested $ 200, and now I’m waiting for them to allow me to photograph something interesting. I will not choose what to shoot yet, for a change, Vkontakte announced a poll , but the choice will most likely be due to circumstances. It would be interesting to see a comet near Mars or a giant planet in opposition. But this does not happen every day, but how Planetary Resources will distribute the time of the telescope is not yet known, they already have more than seven hundred such two hundred-dollar astronomers. In any case, will have to wait until August 2015.
But membership in the Planetary community warms the soul now. This is really a very authoritative organization that not only promotes astronautics, but also funds research, including Russian . By the way, thanks to them, the interview with Habra of the rover driver and, in part, the search for Mars-3 was realized.
I believe that the popularization of space and private astronautics are closely related. After all, any millionaire who invested in space today was once a simple boy who became interested in the stars and was inspired by space pioneers.
The company Planetary Resources, which proclaimed its goal of expanding the resource base of mankind at the expense of space minerals, announced its readiness to launch its first device. True, this is not yet an interplanetary harvester, but only a miniature telescope. But now everyone can make a contribution to the exploration of outer space.
Link to the promotion page: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0?ref=live
')
The ARKYD-100 space telescope was presented to the public as a concept in the winter of 2013, and today the company declares its readiness to send it into space. Initially, it was stated that the army of such telescopes will go in search of the most promising asteroids, but for the first device, the creators focus on the promotion of space research, scientific work and education.
The ARKYD-100 is a small spacecraft, the main scientific instrument of which is a telescope with a mirror diameter of 20 cm and a 5 megapixel matrix. 5 megapixels for such a device is enough. The resolution of the telescope is determined by its diameter, and not the number of pixels of the matrix. For example, with Hubble, the resolution of the matrix is 16 megapixels, while the resolution of the telescope exceeds the ARKYD-100 tenfold ...
Professionals say that with an aperture of 20 cm will not be able to hunt asteroids from near-Earth orbit. But in its first project, the “miners” about the asteroids keep quiet. But they talk about beautiful images of nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, moons and explain about exoplanets, which can be found by the transit method or gravitational microlensing.
The telescope is put into orbit at an altitude of about 550 km (an altitude from 480 to 720 km is indicated, probably elliptical is assumed or they themselves do not yet know the exact height). The device can be effective for observations of neighboring planets. If it is possible to look at Venus or Mars only out of curiosity, then the observations of Jupiter and Saturn will make it possible to carry out real scientific work. ARKYD-100 will be able to monitor the giant planets, this is important for observing atmospheric processes. If you are lucky, you will be able to remove the fall of comets and asteroids. It happens to Jupiter. Here, for example, pictures of Jupiter, taken from Earth to a telescope, comparable in characteristics:
A source
The space telescope will avoid atmospheric distortion, so that the quality will be higher. From Earth, only a few telescopes are able to exceed the resolution above 1 arc-second due to turbulence.
At Kickstarter, the company requested $ 1 million. This is a serious amount, but they scored more than half in the first three days. Still, ambitious goals, competent public relations and the names of famous investors: James Cameron, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, allow you to enlist the financial support of thousands of ordinary Internet users. Now is the 17th day of the campaign and collected more than $ 900 thousand.
Despite the fact that $ 1 million is a lot of money, they are still not enough for the construction and launch of such a spacecraft. Therefore, it was built at the expense of the company. And the money collected on Kickstarter will go to pay for the launch and operation of ground services during operation.
In order to interest Internet users, Planetary Resources has come up with an interesting addition to its device: a monitor is placed on its body, and a webcam on the folding bar, which shoots the telescope itself, the monitor on it and the surrounding space. For $ 25 dollars, everyone gets the opportunity to display his photo on the monitor and take a picture of himself or pictures at will against the background of space.
The company has provided a wide range of offers for investors of various amounts. On the promotion page they are all painted, I will list the most significant ones:
$ 99 and on your behalf, scientists or students will receive 5 minutes of working time of the telescope. It seems a little, but the time of work of the main professional telescopes on Earth is painted far ahead and not everyone gets the opportunity to work. In addition, all those who support more than $ 100 automatically become for a year members of the Planetary Community - the largest and most authoritative public association of space enthusiasts headed by American scientists and popularizers of science Neil de Grass Tyson, Bill Nayi and others .
$ 200 allows you to choose the object that will be shot for you with a telescope, except for the sun. (For those who want to expose the lunar conspiracy, I warn you that from near-earth orbit even Hubble is hopelessly small in order to make out the lunar modules).
$ 450 will make three shots at their own discretion.
$ 1000 will provide an invitation to a tour of Planetary Resources, acquaintance with the management of the company and many small bonuses like a 3D telescope model and a set of posters.
A deposit of more than $ 5000 grants the right for students and scientists to work with a telescope.
There are several interests of Planetary Resources in this whole undertaking. First of all, this is a positive public relations, they will demonstrate to the world and potential investors that they are able to independently create effective spacecraft, and are interested in developing interest in space exploration and exploration. Secondly, they will conduct flight tests of their apparatus, hone its software, learn how to operate it, conduct surveys. It is now useless to search for asteroids, and to launch it into the Large asteroid belt in retrograde orbit, and it will allow to collect a huge amount of information.
Not to be unsubstantiated, I invested $ 200, and now I’m waiting for them to allow me to photograph something interesting. I will not choose what to shoot yet, for a change, Vkontakte announced a poll , but the choice will most likely be due to circumstances. It would be interesting to see a comet near Mars or a giant planet in opposition. But this does not happen every day, but how Planetary Resources will distribute the time of the telescope is not yet known, they already have more than seven hundred such two hundred-dollar astronomers. In any case, will have to wait until August 2015.
But membership in the Planetary community warms the soul now. This is really a very authoritative organization that not only promotes astronautics, but also funds research, including Russian . By the way, thanks to them, the interview with Habra of the rover driver and, in part, the search for Mars-3 was realized.
I believe that the popularization of space and private astronautics are closely related. After all, any millionaire who invested in space today was once a simple boy who became interested in the stars and was inspired by space pioneers.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/181792/
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