THUMBSAT
On 19 August 2025 at 07:33 UTC, 344 finally got to space! ThumbSat-1 and ThumbSat-2 launched aboard a Lijian-1 rocket from Jiuquan, China. These femtosatellites, each weighing under 100 grams, carry technology once reserved for much larger spacecraft. Their mission is simple but powerful: to prove that satellites no longer need to be big to be meaningful. And happily, a 344-designed logo is along for the ride! How did this happen? Well…
Way back in April of 2015, Armin T Ellis invited me to take part in the first Exploration Institute symposium at CalTech. He was pairing scientists developing interesting new missions with visual artists and storytellers. Together we worked on creating persuasive pitches that the scientists would deliver to a room full of venture capitalists on Day 3 of the event. Missions ranged from space all the way down to deep sea ocean exploration. One of the attendants told the story of building the submarines for the James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “almost spearing Roger Moore with the damn sub.” Excellent times!
Launch of ThumbSat-1 and ThumbSat-2 on 19 August 2025/ Note the ThumbSat logo on the rocket fairing
As with most conferences, the real treat is sharing meals with all the fascinating people in attendance. At one of the dinners I found myself sitting next to British scientist Shaun Whitehead. We talked about all the interesting projects, and barely touched on our own work. We had a great time and exchanged information.
A day or two later I got a note from Shaun, who’d taken a look at my website, and enjoyed himself. He was wondering if I might be interested in creating an art project around one of his new class of incredibly small satellites, called ThumbSats. You know, just one of those “Wanna go to space?” emails we all get now and again.
When I called Shaun a scientist, I undersold him just a tiny bit. He has worked with most major space agencies, working on projects from X-ray satellites to planetary landers. He was project engineer for the EPIC MOS cameras on ESA’s XMM Newton, the largest ever European scientific satellite. He was Chief Engineer for the PAW on the British Beagle 2 Mars Lander, and consultant for thermal aspects of NASA’s SWIFT telescope. He has contributed to India’s Chandrayaan and China’s Chang’e lunar missions, and he is currently leading the technical development of Anilore Banon’s “Project Vitae” lunar art installation, recently deploying his own hand-built deployable sculpture on the International Space Station. He is leading the development of the miniature “StratoBooster” stratospheric launch vehicle at Teesside University in the UK.
He also designed and built minimally invasive archeological robots to explore the Great Pyramid in Egypt and slate mines in Europe. These robots are real life transformers that can pass through openings smaller than an inch and then reconfigure themselves to gather samples and take readings. He’s also an accomplished treasure hunter and a game developer. And with all that he’s a lovely man.
Needless to say, I took him up on the offer of a free satellite! I got to work on concepts and drawings and models and stories. The project quickly became very large and then it slowly got very small, and we’ll see where it eventually ends up. These things can’t be rushed, particularly when international space agencies are involved.
In the meantime, I couldn’t resist the urge to meddle. Shaun had designed the original logos for ThumbSat and for its sister project, ThumbNet, a network of ground stations set up and operated by citizen scientists to receive ThumbSat signals. I loved the idea for the logo—a satellite so tiny that it orbits a thumbs up. It’s friendly, it’s optimistic, and together with the name it immediately tells you the central idea of the project. These satellites are tiny—about the size of a half a deck of playing cards. It’s a perfect logo.
Shaun’s original logo design
That said, I thought it could use a little spit polish on the illustration and the typography. So I got to work:
Just a bit of an aesthetic cleanup on the hand, accompanied by more lively typography—simple as that. I showed it to Shaun, and he loved it! We printed some fun business cards for everyone, and later revamped the ThumbSat website, which you can visit here.
Most of this happened in the fall of 2015, just so we’d be ready for the launch in early 2016. WIRED ran a feature on the company, we were working on the art satellite, it was all really exciting! And then began my education in the scheduling of space missions.
Our page in Wired magazine
Delays happen. Launch providers change. Government permits take much longer than you’d think. Shaun, being an old hand at this, was undeterred. It’s apparently not at all unusual for these things to take ten years longer than originally planned. And so it was here.
At the time of this writing, it’s been ten years since I first met Shaun. At that point he’d already invested years into the project. And on August 19th, 2025 the first two ThumbSats launched, to orbit the planet at a height of about 550 km, which is about 100 km higher than the orbit of the International Space Station. You can check out the step-by-step mission updates here.
This flight marks the first international commercial mission for CAS Space, one of China’s emerging launch providers and ThumbSat’s strategic and launch partner. The mission was made possible through close collaboration between CAS Space and ThumbSat, who together designed a specialized deployer—the result of a small, international team uniting talent from Mexico, the UK, China, and beyond.
But this mission isn’t only about the satellites. Through its outreach program, ThumbSat is placing ground-receiving stations in the hands of students and citizen scientists across Mexico. With antennas and software provided free of charge, young volunteers will be able to track signals from orbit and take part in a mission that crosses borders and disciplines. In this way, ThumbSat-1 and ThumbSat-2 are more than satellites—they are proof that space can be accessible, inclusive, and imaginative. As Shaun puts it, “The next generation will not simply watch the sky from afar, but actively connect with orbit, capture signals, and take part in real space exploration.”
I’m beyond excited to be part of the ThumbSat journey, and enormously pleased that one of my designs got to blast off into space! Lastly, I want to make a bold claim: For the first time in human history the paint used to place the satellite logo on a rocket is heavier that the satellite itself! I really shouldn’t be proud of that, but you damn well know I am!