Capturing the Ionosphere: Ground Station Calliope - DIY Satellite

A project by Sandy Antunes on Kickstarter. See the link for additional details and to pledge. If you pledge enough you can get your name engraved in the Calliope! It does burn up on re-entry though. :)

"The short version: buy mission patches and flight pins and you are supporting a home-built orbiting satellite for converting the ionosphere to music for you and everyone to listen to!...

Ever wonder how active space is? Soon, you'll be able to hear it. In 2011, one of the most novel musical instruments will be launched into space: Project Calliope. 'Capturing the Ionosphere' is the effort to capture and record what Calliope 'hears' for its brief 6-12 week life, and bring that to musicians. Called sonification, it lets you hear the activity of the ionosphere, that layer of space where low-earth satellites fly and where the auroras occur."

Some addition info from http://projectcalliope.com/ for the archives:
"Project Calliope is a home-built satellite, launcing in 2011 to convert the ionosphere (where auroras occur) into sound so we can hear on Earth just how active space is. The data will be sent down as MIDI data via amateur ham radio for anyone to hear, and we'll make it available to musicians as royalty-free MIDI tracks to use, reuse and remix into cool music. I like the idea of flying something in space whose purpose is to make music until it dies-- music from science."