ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — University of Michigan researchers say they plan to launch a satellite that will serve as a technological test bed and space-time capsule.
The Ann Arbor school said Tuesday that CubeSat will contain interviews featuring 1,000 people affiliated with the university. It’s meant to test synthetic DNA as a medium for storing data in space.
The project is supported by the Michigan Bicentennial Archive, which says such capsules should remain “alive,” not buried.
CubeSat will be developed during the next two years with faculty and students from numerous fields, including engineering, science and liberal arts. A smaller, test satellite will launch later this year.
Officials say they hope the satellite will be retrieved a century hence and future researchers can determine how the data fabricated at the nanoscale holds up.
