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Author Topic:   Planetary Resources Arkyd 100 space telescope
Robert Pearlman
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Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 05-29-2013 12:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
collectSPACE
Asteroid mining company offers up 'Space Selfies' for crowd-funding space scope

The world's first public "photo booth" in orbit could ride on the first crowd-funded space telescope, if a commercial asteroid mining company's campaign is a success.

Planetary Resources, a Seattle-based company that plans to extract raw materials from the asteroids for use in the exploration and development of space, kicked off its first Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign on Wednesday (May 29) to raise $1 million from the public to build and launch a private space telescope.

In return for pledges of $25, Planetary Resources will offer supporters the opportunity to send a digital photo of their choosing to orbit, have it displayed on the exterior of the company's satellite and re-photographed with the Earth as a backdrop. Higher pledge levels will provide students and other educational groups the chance to take control of the telescope for their own observations.

"People of any age and background will be able to point the telescope outward to investigate our solar system, deep space or join us in our study of near-Earth asteroids" Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources' president and chief engineer, said in a statement.

See here for discussion of Planetary Resources' Arkyd space telescope.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 06-20-2013 02:15 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
collectSPACE
Crowd funds $1 million for asteroid miners' public space telescope

The world's first selfie-snapping, asteroid-hunting, public space telescope is $1 million closer to its launch into Earth orbit, having surpassed its initial crowd-funding goal.

Planetary Resources' online fundraising campaign soared past the seven-figure mark Wednesday evening (June 19), green-lighting the commercial asteroid mining company's plans to deploy a publicly-accessible space telescope in 2015. More than 11,000 people pledged at least $10 to the project, which promised to not only capture images of its supporters' selected astronomical targets with the ARKYD space telescope, but also photograph their submitted self-portraits ("Space Selfies") on a digital screen mounted on the outside of the small satellite.

"Thank you everyone who pushed it over the $1 million mark!" Peter Diamandis, Planetary Resources' co-founder, wrote on Kickstarter, the website that is hosting the crowd funding campaign.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 05-26-2016 02:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Planetary Resources release
Final Update and Full Refund

When we announced plans for our crowdfunding campaign, "ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone," the support from the Kickstarter community was (and still is) amazing! Our goal was lofty, and with your support, we raised a record-setting US$1.5 million in funds to support it. Thank you so much for the constant encouragement. You've provided us the support to try out a bold new idea with the potential for huge impact both on and off this planet.

So far, we have fulfilled the many T-shirt, sticker, and poster Rewards. We've provided scores of memberships to The Planetary Society, codes for the video game Planetary Annihilation, and developed an educational rocket science board game in partnership with Xtronaut Enterprises. In addition to these Kickstarter-funded activities, we've also progressed on our company roadmap and built and launched two Arkyd-3 test spacecraft (the first didn't make it very far off the ground!), and our two follow-on Arkyd-6 test satellites are finished and waiting for their next launch into space this summer. All this leads to the Arkyd 100 Space Telescope capability.

When we closed the campaign in June of 2013, we were confident that the tremendous enthusiasm from around the world would translate into continued financial support outside of the Kickstarter community to move our idea forward... but, what we discovered was unfortunate. Aside from all the progress we made in the underlying technology, the follow-on interest from the business and educational sectors to expand the ARKYD campaign into a fully-supported mission did not exist as we had anticipated. We have explored and exhausted a variety of opportunities big and small for the financial backing necessary to complete the project.

Due to the lack of necessary follow-on support, we are saddened to announce that we are unable to fulfill the "ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone" campaign. While we regret we must wind-down the project, we are pleased that we can offer each of our 17,614 backers an immediate and full refund, with our sincere thanks for your longstanding support.

See here for discussion of Planetary Resources' Arkyd space telescope.

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