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