Los Angeles' famous iam8bit gallery announced their partnership with Clyde Space to launch the world's first space pop-art this December, and the artists responsible for the visions of the project are creating quite the buzz.
"UKube-1 is the UK Space Agency's first CubeSat mission and is being fully assembled by Scottish satellite company Clyde Space." Wired reports. "It now has the added honour of being the world's 'first functioning pop-art satellite', with designs by artists Jon Gibson and Amanda White, who run the famous iambit gallery in Los Angeles."
The space pop-art is meant to have a sense of humor, and the artist approached the project keeping that in mind. Gibson and White had fun with the project.
"If someone is going to invade our planet, presumably they're going to come in some sort of electronic, electricity-powered ship," Gibson told the Associated Press. "Maybe this will make them stop for a moment and say, 'These guys are nice. We're not going to destroy their planet."'
Clyde Space invested £500,000 into UKube-1, and the company assembled the satellite on their own, according to Wired. "Nanosatellites" are less expensive ways of testing equipment and "doing valuable science in orbit."
"[Nanosatellites] open the door to do lots of different things in space," Clyde Space CEO Craig Clark told Wired. "Within five years I'd like to be making 100 nanosatellites a year [here in Scotland]".
According to the Associate Press, more than 1,000 satellites are orbiting in space, but this satellite will be the first one that doubles as art, and Clark is excited about the project.
"No one else is crazy enough," Clark told the Associated Press.
UKube-1 is scheduled to launch on Dec. 17 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahstan. If the "pop-art" satellite is successful, Clyde Space plans to create a"national CubeSat programme", with missions every 18 months.
Check out the video below to see a computer generated version of the space art in action.
