Not all satellite building involves blowing things up, frying circuits, and desperately hacking hardware. Sometimes you get regulatory-related requests such as "provide a brief abstract of your mission (include key milestones or events)". So, free of hype, here is the boilerplate definition I came up with for Project Calliope.
The projectCalliope satellite is a music/science sonification project that will convert the ionosphere to MIDI data for transmission back to earth. Detectors include a magnetic, electric field, thermal, and light detector. Data is gathered constantly and downlinked as bandwidth is available. Data is sent as unencrypted timestamped MIDI file packets via amateur radio, transmitted as much as IARU allocation allows. Data usage rights are granted to anyone who can receive it. The satellite will operate continuously within its power and radio budget until re-entry.
Just sizzles off the page, eh? While not every step in building a personal satellite is exciting, I remain committed to showing you the entire process, from nuts to orbit.
Alex
DIY satellite news every Tuesday here and at Project Calliope
General space science every Friday at the Daytime Astronomer
