back to article NanoAvionics satellite pulls out GoPro to take stunning selfie over Earth

NanoAvionics has unveiled a 4K satellite selfie taken by a GoPro Hero 7 as the company's MP42 microsatellite flew 550km above the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef. Space selfies are hardly new. Buzz Aldrin snapped an image of himself during 1966's Gemini 12 mission, and being able to get a picture of spacecraft can be …

  1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    Awesome!

    Is this the first GoPro in space?

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

      Re: Awesome!

      Well, the Special Projects Bureau nearly managed it with PARIS and LOHAN...

      RIP Lester.

    2. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: Awesome!

      Don't get too excited...

      Mooning images will be the next phase, closely followed by the first photo-copier in space.

  2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Satellite

    So how one gets their own satellite into the orbit? Are there any open source projects?

    How do you do the launch?

    Can you apply for funding at your local Council?

    How do you get the satellite back from space if you get bored and wanted to sell it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Satellite

      Probably best to start with a cubesat (1l payload in a 10cm cube, hence the name). The Register has covered projects based on this format extensively over the years.

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Satellite

      Join your local AMSAT.

    3. Stork

      Re: Satellite

      Don’t count on getting it back.

    4. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Satellite

      How do you get the satellite back from space if you get bored and wanted to sell it?

      Buyer collects?

  3. Monty Cantsin

    Did they build a little robot to yank the battery?

    As the owner of a GoPro 7, I'm intrigued to know know how they deal with the constant lockups of the camera. Down here on Earth, the only solution is to physically pull and reinsert the battery - not fun to do on a surfboard or kayak on the ocean, pretty difficult I'd say on a satellite.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Did they build a little robot to yank the battery?

      If it even has a battery. It should be powered from the satellite power supply, so it should be easy to power cycle it by remote command if required. Add your command into the next upload sequence. Easier than on a Kayak.

    2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: Did they build a little robot to yank the battery?

      They rely on the helpful aliens. Whenever an alien see the battery popping out, they just put their paws on the satellite and manipulate it back in.

      That was the deal reached by the US, USSR and aliens that they will never get photographed in exchange for them keeping an eye on the satellites and that the CIA and KGB will keep a blind eye on occassional abductions of civilians from the Earth (but the aliens were kindly asked for sharing the results of their experiments).

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Did they build a little robot to yank the battery?

        If you look at the photo carefully you can see it's all back projection. But the studio made the subtle error of showing the Earth as some sort of sphere

  4. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
    Joke

    Clever

    I like the way they've used a fisheye lens to give earth that 'round' look when we all know that it's actually flat.

    1. Zebo-the-Fat

      Re: Clever

      It's not flat, it's flat ish (I can see hills from my window!)

      Actually the fish eye lens distorts things so you can't see it's really triangular!

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Clever

        At least the camera angle manages to hide the elephants and turtle:

        "In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part . . .

        Great A'Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid just He stares fixedly at The Destination.

        In a brain bigger than a city with geological slowness, He thinks only of the Weight.

        Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad shoulders the disc of the World rests, garlanded by the the long waterfall at its vast circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven."

        ('The Colour of Magic', Copyright 1983 Terry Pratchett)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Clever

        Obviously wrong, the shape shifting masonic lizard people made the earth in the shape of a pyramid.

        1. John Sager

          Re: Clever

          Not regular enough. An octahedron if you like pointy bits or a dodecahedron for something with a bit of magic (12 bits actually).

    2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Clever

      Actually its banana shaped

      1. Rich 11 Silver badge

        Re: Clever

        Don't tell Ray Comfort. He'll jump up and claim that because it's banana-shaped God must have made the world, and made it perfect for humans. You know, a bit like the way Velvet Underground made the perfect album.

  5. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    So where are the elephants and the turtle?

  6. wolfetone Silver badge

    All the flat-earthers will be like "Nah m8 it's impossoble to put a GuPru in to Space"

    Idiots.

    1. Rich 11 Silver badge

      The flerfers will insist that the only photographic evidence allowed has to come from their favourite camera, the P900 with its 83x optical zoom capable of watching ships refract over the horizon.

      1. Boothy

        Also don't forget it also needs to be out of focus, as no flerfer has ever learnt how to actually use the P900.

  7. heyrick Silver badge
    Coat

    But...

    ...is it flat?

  8. DomDF

    I hope GoPro gave them the camera for free, seeing how they're getting free marketing out of this.

    1. Flywheel
      Happy

      If this was the UK they would have had to nip out to a local Currys and negotiate their way out the extended warranty hard-sell, then use the money saved to buy a space-proof case.

  9. Deliberatus1

    It is Borg!

    Aiieeee! The first Borg cube!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Junk

    Are people really just chucking crap up there now?

    1. cosymart
      Boffin

      Re: Junk

      Nah, been doing it for years :-)

  11. Youngone

    Nice nice nice.

    Here I am living in the future, posting this from my very own real life computer, whose desktop wallpaper image is a selfy of a nuclear-powered robot on Mars, and watching a video made by a consumer grade camera from space.

    Cool.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Nice nice nice.

      The future? Got a flying car yet? A personal jetpack? Your PanAm ticket to the space station? Fusion power?

  12. Atomic Duetto

    Can’t help but wonder what time and date the picture was taken so I can place myself in the picture…

    1. stuartnz

      I got a bit excited wondering if I could "see my house from here", but it cuts off a bit south of me. :)

  13. BackToTheFuture
    Pint

    Mmmmm....... beer.........

    One thing I'm wondering about - at the beginning of the video when the arm holding the GoPro is deployed, the force of this action makes the satellite pivot backwards and forwards for a few seconds before stabilising. Surely in zero G, without counteracting forces the satellite would simply continue to rotate indefinitely. Has that little beer fridge satellite fuel and position-correcting engines onboard, or is the whole thing simply dangling on a piece of string in somebody's basement with a planet earth video back-projected? And if it's the latter, can I have one of the beers on board?

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Mmmmm....... beer.........

      The MP42 has both reaction wheels and magnetorquers.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Mmmmm....... beer.........

        Yes. But, on the other hand, having watched all those NASA video of spacecraft deploying booms and things in super slow motion, it was still quite a shock to this boom deploy a camera from a tensioned spring and the whole kit and kaboodle proceed to bounce around like a box of frogs!

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