Monday, August 25, 2008

Mars Society TEMPO3 Project

RLV News posts on a number of things in the linked post, including a Space Review article on the winner of the Mars Project Challenge. Here's an excerpt on the TEMPO3 CubeSat satellite project:

Best of all, the project is within budgetary reach: with an estimated total project cost of $250,000–500,000, raising the cash to do the mission will be challenging, but perfectly achievable.

...

gravity generation will be done by spinning the main satellite along with a tethered counterweight, a project that aligns nicely with what you’d expect on an actual Mars mission, where you could use a spent booster stage as the counterweight.

Information Week also has a brief article on the winning project.