KickSat is a KickStarter project to give up to 315 people the opportunity to have a spacecraft they can call their own in space.

It was jointly created by Zac Manchester and JA in August 2011 combining work from the Cornell Sprite ChipSat project and the JA Open Source Space System (OSSS). The JA OSSS comprises platforms and processes to enable very low-cost hands on citizen space exploration and has been under continuous development since 2009.

JA created or helped with KickSat design, prototyping, implementation and funding of many of the elements of the project including the initial cost reduced designs of the ChipSats and CubeSat, mission design, project documentation and the KickStarter fund-raising model including branding, reward design, text and graphic assets and many other substantive elements of the project.

The first public academic presentation of the project was:

Johnson, M.J., Manchester, Z.R., Peck, M.A. KickSat.org – an open source ChipSat dispenser and citizen space exploration proof of concept mission. European CubeSat Symposium, Brussels, Belgium, January 2012 (see page 91 of the whole book of abstracts here)

With regret, JA has withdrawn from the project. Questions about delivery of rewards should be addressed to Zac Manchester. Contact details should be available via the KickStarter web page here.

If you have any concerns, JA will provide support via support@kicksat.org. In the event that the KickStarter project is unable to provide the rewards originally described, JA has contingency plans to provide participants in the KickStarter with free access to an equivalent opportunity to ensure that you receive a reward similar to the one you were expecting.

© 2012 JA. a JA initiative, KickSat and KickSat.org are trademarks of JA