N-Prize

N-Prize

With the creation of some competitions for private-funded companies/projects in the space domain a few years ago, Dr. Paul H. Dear thought about an other competition open to imaginative people. The idea was brainstormed and the competition was finally created, along with strict rules.

The goal of the competition is to launch from earth surface a very small object into orbit. This satellite must not exceed 20 grams, and the difficult thing is to be able to make this orbital insertion for a cost less than £1,000. There are two sets of rules: the launch can be single use (Single-Spent-to-orbit), like a rocket, and thus using the £1,000 for the full price of the launch vehicle and the satellite. The other way is a reusable launch vehicule (RV) to some extend, for example recovering the first stage of a rocket or a Helium balloon. Everything that is recovered and reusable doesn't count into the £1,000.

The pushed-into-orbit [10-20[g satellite has to be tracked by entrants on their own. To be validated, proof must be established that the satellite has made at least 9 orbits before re-entry.