Believe It Or Not, There’s A Kinect Space Program

Everyone likes to make their jokes about Microsoft’s Kinect. Sure, the game available for it are below lackluster and the device itself saw many features cut from it before launch, but that doesn’t deny the fact that it’s still a pretty impressive piece of hardware. The games are shit, but the tech behind Microsoft’s little camera is pretty amazing. Apparently, it’s so awesome that a satellite being launched into space has been built entirely from a Kinect.

In fact, there are two satellites. A project being run by a university and business firm in England will see two satellites launched into space from cheap consumer electronics. One of these satellites will be made up of parts from Google’s Galaxy Nexus handset, while the other will be made up of parts from a Kinect. The Kinect is being used to “provide the satellites with 3D spatial awareness to align themselves and dock together.”

“It may seem far-fetched, but our low cost nanosatellites could dock to build large and sophisticated modular structures such as space telescopes. Unlike today’s big space missions, these could be reconfigured as mission objectives change, and upgraded in-orbit with the latest available technologies.”

I say again; blame developers for the crappy Kinect titles, not the hardware.