(March 9 is Miku Day because of Japanese number puns)
In 2009*, a few members of the Japanese video site "Nico Nico Douga" (it's like YouTube, but you need to have an account to view videos, and comments can have timestamps and scroll across the video) got together and planned to have a cubesat with a tiny figure of "Hachune Miku" (a chibi/super-deformed version of the virtual singing character Hatsune Miku) inside, swinging a negi (green onion, an item commonly associated with Miku) in space.
*I didn't discover Miku until August 2010, a week after I started high school.
This group was first known as "HAXA" (Hachune Aerospace Exploration Agency). Obviously, the name was a pastiche of JAXA, and is the reason why I named my fictional space agency "HASDA" (Hatsunia Aerospace Science and Development Agency, based on NASDA) instead.
They later changed their name to "SOMESAT" (Social Media Satellite Development Project) (all of the pictures are from the bottom of that page)
It's 2015, and the cubesat has yet to be launched (I'm not sure if it ever will), but they did launch a figure on a test rocket.
They also launched a rocket to 2 kilometers at the eXtreme Performance Rocket Ships event at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
The group was also apparently involved in the (successful) petition to place images of Miku on JAXA's Venus probe "Akatsuki", which was launched in May 2010.
(subtitled translation)
Unfortunately, it failed to enter into a Venusian orbit in December 2010, but there may be another chance later this year.
There was also another satellite design they had, called MiKU-SAT (Multi-intangible Keg Unit).
So if someone asks,
[2021-01-06 - restored this post from archive.org because the forum update broke it]
In 2009*, a few members of the Japanese video site "Nico Nico Douga" (it's like YouTube, but you need to have an account to view videos, and comments can have timestamps and scroll across the video) got together and planned to have a cubesat with a tiny figure of "Hachune Miku" (a chibi/super-deformed version of the virtual singing character Hatsune Miku) inside, swinging a negi (green onion, an item commonly associated with Miku) in space.
*I didn't discover Miku until August 2010, a week after I started high school.
This group was first known as "HAXA" (Hachune Aerospace Exploration Agency). Obviously, the name was a pastiche of JAXA, and is the reason why I named my fictional space agency "HASDA" (Hatsunia Aerospace Science and Development Agency, based on NASDA) instead.
They later changed their name to "SOMESAT" (Social Media Satellite Development Project) (all of the pictures are from the bottom of that page)
It's 2015, and the cubesat has yet to be launched (I'm not sure if it ever will), but they did launch a figure on a test rocket.
They also launched a rocket to 2 kilometers at the eXtreme Performance Rocket Ships event at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
The group was also apparently involved in the (successful) petition to place images of Miku on JAXA's Venus probe "Akatsuki", which was launched in May 2010.
Unfortunately, it failed to enter into a Venusian orbit in December 2010, but there may be another chance later this year.
There was also another satellite design they had, called MiKU-SAT (Multi-intangible Keg Unit).
So if someone asks,
this is the response.Why would voice synthesizer software need a space agency?
[2021-01-06 - restored this post from archive.org because the forum update broke it]
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