It Campaigned From Outer Space!

Pythagoras Strategies, a media consulting firm based in Southern California that works primarily with Democratic clients, has begun work on the research and development phase of personal satellites designed to be used by political campaigns.
 
PythSat1, a prototype model, is scheduled for launch in June 2012—just in time for the start of the next election cycle. The satellite uses the international CubeSat 3U specifications, the standard for a miniature communications platform weighing approximately one pound.
 
After its launch, the satellite will enter low Earth orbit. Over the course of three months, it will gradually draft back toward Earth until it burns up harmlessly in the atmosphere. For those three months, the satellite will be in the service of a single campaign.
 
Why would a campaign want its own personal communications satellite? “It will be able to transmit data and voice up and down, so it can be used for anything,” says Kambiz Mostofizadeh, chairman of Pythagoras Strategies. “From robocalls to creating a temporary radio station or a temporary television station.” The satellite will also come with a graphic user interface designed to allow campaign staffers without satellite operating experience to make the most of its capabilities.
 
Mostofizadeh says the firm has already been contacted by one Los Angeles city council campaign interested in purchasing a satellite. If the campaign decides to go through with it, the total cost will run to approximately $30,000, covering launch, operation, and maintenance costs.
 
Small personal satellites have been commercially available only in the last decade. A Japanese firm, Astro Research Corporation, began offering commercial satellite payload and launch services in 2006. The company’s MySat-1 allows for imaging, disaster monitoring, and outer-space component testing. Astro Expeditions, LLC, an American firm, launched a similar product late last year called TubeSat, which can track the migratory habits of animals or the shifting of Earth’s magnetic field.
 
Personalized communications satellites, however, are a new innovation that could prove very useful for political campaigns worldwide, particularly in nations with spotty radio and cellular service and where access to the Internet is limited.
 Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. E-mail him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com