DOGE-1, the first cryptocurrency-funded mission to the moon, will launch early next year following a new partnership between two blockchain companies and manufacturer Geometric Energy Corporation, also known as GEC.
Smart exchange ecosystem Unizen and incubator DeFi ZenX announced Wednesday that they are in the process of building and launching DOGE-1, a 40-kilogram (roughly 88-pound) cubesat that will provide a new use case for cryptocurrencies. The cubesat will travel to a "stable lunar orbit" to obtain lunar spatial intelligence from sensors and cameras that will be sent back to GEC for analysis.
The cubesat will be implemented through a launch agreement with SpaceX FalconX scheduled for the first quarter of 2022, although precise dates were not provided. More than 1,600 cubesats have been launched to date, but unlike DOGE-1, they have traveled into low Earth orbit, which is between 100 and 1,200 miles above the Earth's surface. Traveling into lunar orbit places DOGE-1 250,000 miles from Earth.
"NASA's CAPSTONE was intended to be the first cubed satellite to reach the moon, but it has been delayed several times and has a current launch date of late March 2022," the companies said. "This means that DOGE-1 could be the first cubed satellite in history to reach the moon, marking a significant achievement for global spaceflight."
As Cointelegraph previously reported, the Project funded by Dogecoin was first introduced in May this year, with a planned launch date as early as the first quarter of 2022. At the time, SpaceX's vice president of commercial sales Tom Ochinero said that the "mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and lay the foundation for trade interplanetary".
SpaceX to launch the Doge-1 satellite to the moon next year
- Paid mission in Doge
- 1st crypto in space
- 1st meme in spaceAl mooooonnn !!https://t.co/xXfjGZVeUW
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2021
Related: To the moon: Huobi wants to send someone into space for their eighth birthday
Dogecoin (DOGE) rose to prominence earlier this year thanks in part to the founder of SpaceX Elon musk, who touted the virtues of memecoin and even claimed to work with its developers to improve its efficiency. The Musk-inspired surge may have added billions to DOGE's market capitalization at a time when more mainstream users were entering cryptocurrencies.
Post navigation
