Short of scoring a spot on the ISS experiment docket, putting your scientific aspirations into orbit can be a bit tricky. Why not try crowdsourcing your way into space? ArduSat's barking up that very tree, asking Kickstarter contributors to help them get a Arduino CubeSat off the ground. Headed by NanoSatisfi, a tech startup operating out of NASA's Ames Research Center, the project hopes to raise enough funds to launch an Arduino bank and a bevy of open-source sensors into orbit. The payoff for backers? Access. Varying levels of contribution are rewarded with personalized space broadcasts, remote access to the space hardware's onboard cameras and even use of the machine's sensors to run experiments of the backer's own design. If all goes well, the team hopes to launch more satellites for the everyman, including a unit dedicated to letting would-be stellar photographers take celestial snapshots. Sure, it's far cry from actually launching yourself into the stars, but would you rather be a tourist, or a scientist? Check out project at the source link below, and mull over that for awhile.

ArduSat wants to put Arduino satellite, your experiments into orbit originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jun 2012 04:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.