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Satnews Daily
October 19th, 2012

NanoRacks... Opportunity Knocks, And Is Rewarded (Award)


[SatNews] NanoRacks (NR) has announced the selection of a winning proposal for their...

...Announcement of Opportunity for off the shelf NanoLabs on the International Space Station. Infinity Aerospace was selected for their proposal to design, develop and market an Arduino based, open-source, 1U NanoLab for use on the NanoRacks space station research platforms, as well as all other platforms including Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo.

“The community was challenged to create an open source, easy to us eNanoLab and Infinity Aerospace’s proposal hit the target beautifully, both in the technical design and the spirit of the competition,” said Richard Pournelle, senior vice-president of NanoRacks. Under the terms of the AO, the winning entry receives $2,000 in seed funding from NanoRacks, technical assistance on complying with NASA space station safety requirements, and the ability to have their winning products marketed by NanoRacks’ to their educational and research customers.

Infinity Aerospace’s “ArduLab Education” model is an Arduino based, open source, 1U cubesat form factor platform enabling students to literally “plug and play” with sensors and other technology for conducting valuable scientific research on the ISS. By supporting all the off the shelf sensors already compatible with the Arduino software platform, ArduLab will enable students and researchers to rapidly develop experiments focused on the environment onboard the ISS. Arduino is used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world by varied age groups. The ArduLab Education NanoLab comes with a microcontroller board and non-metallic structure specifically designed for the space environment and ready to integrate with the NanoRacks’ Platforms now permanently on the U.S. National Lab on space station.

Infinity Aerospace expects to have the first units available by the end of the year. The suggested retail price for the “ArduLab Education” model will be under $2,500 making it easily affordable for any educational or scientific community.