TubeSats

NewSpace company Interorbital Systems is pioneering an innovative approach designed to give more access to orbital space. The company's TubeSat is billed as the first personal satellite and priced so that individuals can purchase them.

TubeSats are being sold in "kits" that include the satellite bus, power system, basic yet flexible operating system, and launch on IOS' NEPTUNE 30 vehicle. Launches are scheduled to begin next year. The satellite will be put into a low Earth orbit that will bring it back to Earth after perhaps a few months, so the program will not add to the orbital debris problem.

Cost of a TubeSat is $8,000 total, which will put them within reach of individual researchers, for example, as well as small businesses. Uses of a TubeSat are wide ranging, from microgravity research to Earth imaging to even such projects as space burials.

According to personal communications with IOS CEO Randa Milliron, in the first few weeks of the program, four kits have aleady been sold, and more than twenty are pending.