7

The Open Space Agency

FEATURE

W

e’re used to seeing space as

something untouchable. To get

into space you need billion-dollar

budgets, decade-long

development cycles, and the sort

of organisational clout that only

PayPal squillionaires and nation states can muster.

But if you can’t take yourself into space, you can at

least bring space to you. Today, the emergence of

low-cost 3D printers and laser cutters – paired with

microcontroller platforms such as Arduino and

Raspberry Pi – have driven down the cost of space

technologies to a point where individuals with just

enough engineering and fabrication know-how can

launch their own space exploration program.

London-based inventor James Parr founded the

Open Space Agency (OSA) to enable citizen scientists

to meaningfully contribute

to space exploration

from here on Earth.

The Open Space

Agency developed

the Ultrascope

(hsmag.cc/lWyqvc), a

professional-grade,

asteroid hunting,

automated robotic

observatory (ARO),

able to conduct

celestial photography

and photometry to help

NASA detect and track

near-Earth objects, to

see just how far the idea

of citizen space exploration

could be pushed.

James describes how the rapid evolution of

consumer technology had made him wonder

whether it was possible to replicate the

achievements of the space program using off-the-

shelf technology. “The concept for the Ultrascope

arose when I realised that the tools and technologies

to pull it off – cloud computing; high-speed phone

networks; low-cost, high-performance chips and

CCDs [charge-coupled device – see page 52]; 3D

printing; and the maker movement – had all matured

around the same time, enabling a new era in

citizen science.”

Today, millions of CCDs are manufactured each

year to be used in smartphone cameras. Thanks to

CCD technology, the quality of a modern smartphone

camera is essentially the same as those found on

NASA’s Mars Rover.

By leveraging these powerful new technologies,

the Ultrascope can communicate with satellites to

determine its exact location on Earth, enabling the

3D-printed telescope to automatically target and

photograph celestial bodies like stars, planets, and

asteroids in the night sky. The resulting images can

then be uploaded to OSA’s cloud database for

post-processing and analysis. The idea is that, by

creating a large, distributed network of these

telescopes all over the world, the Ultrascope

community will be able to make scientifically

valuable observations by combining data from

multiple locations.

CROWDSOURCED ASTRONOMY

One of the first members of the OSA community

was Matthew Nelson, a sales rep for a radio controls

company in the United States. “The design really

lends itself to be understood by a complete novice

Cameron Norris

Cameron is a

technology and

communications

specialist, passionate

about the use of open-

source hardware for

social innovation.

@cameronsnorris

Meet the team that wants to give us the power to search the depths of space.

Jean Luc Picard would be proud of them

THE OPEN

SPACE AGENCY

Below

The STEMcase

is bringing space

technology to the

whole world

Credit

Trillium Technologies

CC BY-SA