What does N stand for? Nonsense? - June 18, 2008
The N prize? What’s that? Something 14/24 times as good as the X-prize? Nope, it is – in its own words – “a challenge to launch an impossibly small satellite into orbit on a ludicrously small budget, for a pitifully small cash prize.”
Details as follows: £9,999.99 is in the prize pot for anyone who proves that they’ve put a small satellite into orbit that weighs between 9.99 and 19.99 grams. This teeny satellite has to complete at least nine Earth orbits, and cost no more than £999.99.
It wasn’t surprising, therefore, to read in an interview with the instigator, Paul Dear, a biologist specialising in single-molecule genomics, at the MRC in Cambridge, that a bottle of Pinot Grigio had a lot to do with the prize’s inception.
So far, the smallest satellite made is the CubeSat – measuring about 10cm by 10cm by 10cm and weighing around one kilogram. And costing a lot more than £999.99. At a meeting arranged by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council last year, a low cost mission seems to have been defined as anything less than million pounds.
So how on earth could a ten-gram satellite be made for under a thousand pounds? One suggestion I heard is to send a flashing bicycle LED-lamp up there and claim it is transmitting Morse code. Not bad, not bad. Someone else wondered if a great big sheet-like structure (made out of tin foil, perhaps?) might do the trick to maximise the surface area so that a lightweight body could be picked up by radar.
I can’t wait to see who wins. But I think Dear can sleep safely with his ten grand stashed under his mattress for some time yet.
Image: NASA
Comments
The satellite is not "impossibly" small, though the budget is possibly, impossibly so. Improbably small would possibly be more accurate. At the moment the budget is impossibly small, but if new methods of propulsion are invented and space travel becomes more common, economies of scale might kick in reducing the cost of launching the satellite to within the means of the backyard hobbyist and the "ludicrously small" budget.
The wording should be changed to "A (nonsensical?/ quixotic?/ ludicrous?) challenge to launch a ludicrously small satellite on an improbably small budget, for a pitifully small cash prize"
Posted by: Richard | June 21, 2008 08:02 PM
I wonder if a light gas gun on a balloon could put a small slug of aluminum into orbit?
Would Norad be able to track 20 grams of aluminum?
Posted by: R2K | June 26, 2008 06:20 PM
Don't forget, re-useable components need not count toward the budget. We have teams opting for various combinations of re-useable and disposable stages. Another popular option is a 'rockoon' - a small rocket launched from a high-altitude, unmanned balloon where negligible air resistance makes smaller rockets more attractive.
Posted by: Paul Dear | June 27, 2008 02:33 PM
Why not just have some space tourist bring the nano sat up with them and toss it out the airlock.
Or just have it attached to the cargo trunk of a vehicle like Dragon or attach another private vehicle such as Orbital's Cygnus with a simple release mechanism.
It would be going as a secondary payload vs primary so you could only claim the cost per Kg on the vehicle that carries it up.
The cheapest and maybe the only way to get something this small in orbit would be as a secondary payload.
Posted by: Ruri | July 2, 2008 07:08 PM