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SkyCorp, a start-up satellite company, announced it is partnering with Apple to put an Apple Macintosh G4 in orbit.
posted: 04:00 pm ET
16 June 2000
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apple_inspace_000615 With Apple's recent success,the Macintosh computer has definitely been going places. But now the computeris headed into very special territory: space. A start-up satellite companycalled SkyCorp announced it is partnering with Apple to put what it sayswill be the first Web server in orbit. Sometime next year, an AppleMacintosh G4 computer will fly aboard an experimental satellite duringa space-shuttle flight, SkyCorp said. "This Web server will utilizestandard computer technology, modified for space," said Dennis Wingo, SkyCorpchief executive officer. "Apple Computer has agreed to provide hardwareand technical support to SkyCorp for this venture." The announcement was madelast weekend at the Silicon Valley Space Enterprise Symposium in San Jose,California, a conference sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation tobring together space entrepreneurs and potential investors.
Dennis Wingo, CEO of SkyCorp,Huntsville, Alabama.
Wireless, of course Users would be able to accessthe server using wireless networking protocols, including a SkyCorp-developedvariant of Apple's existing AirPort wireless networking technology, asthe satellite passed overhead. The server would largely contain technology-and hardware-test data. Wingo, a veteran of variousspace projects, flew Macintosh 2 computers on three shuttle missions --STS 46, 57 and 63 -- in the early 1990s. To the best of his knowledge,these are the only Macs to have flown in space, he said. In 1998 NASA and SPACEHABimplemented a system that allowed researchers to get "Web-like" accessto data from their experiments on the shuttle. However, that system usedrouters on the shuttle and the ground to transfer data that could thenbe accessed by file transfer protocol, rather than a Web server on theshuttle itself.
Satellite-assembly test However, the primary purposeof the satellite mission is not to place a Web server in orbit but to testSkyCorp's satellite-assembly technology. The company is developing technologiesto assemble satellites in orbit that would be as fully-functional as existingsatellites, but built at a small fraction of the conventional mass andcost. Satellites must be able tohandle the high vibrations and accelerations of launches, even though oncein orbit the satellite will never again feel those forces. SkyCorp, based in Huntsville,Alabama, currently is negotiating a memorandum of understanding with NASAto fly components of a satellite on a shuttle mission next year. The satellite,containing the Web server, would be assembled in orbit by the shuttle crewand then deployed out the shuttle. If that test flight is asuccess, it opens the way to building large constellations of such satellites,which could be assembled by crews on the shuttle, International Space Station(ISS) and Mir. In the case of ISS, Wingo said, the satellites could beassembled inside the station, then deployed through the airlock of a Japaneseresearch module which will be equipped with a robotic arm. The arm couldremove the satellite from the airlock without the need for a spacewalkingastronaut. By building inexpensive,super-lightweight satellites in orbit, Wingo said it could be possibleto build a satellite constellation of the type proposed by satellite communicationsfirm Teledesic for less than 10 percent of the company's cost, which hasbeen estimated to be at least $9 billion.
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