Kicksat burned up, including Sprites

Unfortunate turn of events - the on-board computer reset after launch (probably due to radiation) and with it the timer for releasing the sprite femtosatellites, and the radio receiver didn't work due to insufficient supply voltage, so the sprites couldn't be released manually either.

One backer paid $10,000 to be the person who hit the big red button that would launch all the 'sprites' into space... damn.

It really is rocket science. Putting stuff into space is always hard.

Wait, wait ... So they were asking for 30K, got 70K and that let them hitch a ride on a NASA rocket and have a satellite deployed. This seems oddly affordable. What am I missing?

Awesome project. I think it is pretty imaginative. What about the idea that sending a bunch of rocket payloads up there would add to the space debris already up there though?

Ooops. I'm happy PhoneSat worked.

I've not followed this at all but the ARRL was launching satellites decades ago when I was a ham. Whatever happened to all that? (Yeah, I guess I should be Googling.)