Does a Time Capsule Blasted Into Space Have a Better Chance at Surviving 100 Years? (Updated)

To help celebrate the schooltime ’s 200 - twelvemonth day of remembrance , bookman at the University of Michigan have decide to build a clock time capsule . Boring , right ? Not exactly . Instead of inter it , which would inevitably contribute to its contents rotting away , the scholar want toblast it into place where it will revolve the earthly concern for 100 years , potentially giving it a better chance at surviving .

The process of make a time capsule unremarkably involve building what is basically a miniature vault designed to protect what ’s privileged — be it pic , memorabilia , paper , or whatever — from the elements and anythi else 10 of disregard can throw at it . More often than not , it fails , resulting in a dissatisfactory revealwhen it ’s finally opened . But in blank there ’s no moisture , oxygen , or microscopical creatures that can destroy what you ’re seek to preserve .

rather of a vault , however , the University of Michigan students are designing and build a “ cubesat”—a tiny artificial satellite made up of four - inch cube — that will contain almost 1,000 consultation from student at the schoolhouse , all microscopically etched onto Si chips . The tiny clock time capsule willalso sport the schooltime ’s mission instruction encoded onto synthetic DNA , so that in 100 geezerhood future students can study how well it admit up after a century in space .

There wo n’t be any photo or newspaper publisher trim gormandize into the cubesat time capsule , however , as the students demand to maximize the limited space they have available to incorporate a propulsion organization — the first to be incorporate into a petite artificial satellite like this . Earth ’s sobriety eventually pulls everything orb our planet back down , and to keep this time capsule up there for 100 years , it require its own actuation arrangement to counteract the clout of gravity .

But there ’s yet another challenge to design a satellite that will eventually be retrieve after 100 years in area : it wo n’t be able to gestate enough power to communicate with the Earth the entire time . finally it will go understood , so the students have integrate external reflector into its aim so that when 100 years is up , student of the future can apply a primer coat - base optical maser organization to scan the sky until they can visually detect it . At that point they ’ll also be able to track its orbit , and calculate where it will eventually crash to globe when its range decays .

The experimentation is for certain a creative way to ensure that the clip condensation ’s content hold up the 100 - prospicient trip-up . But after 60 age of sending rocket , satellites , and other ballistic capsule into orbit , it ’s also incur really crowd together and cluttered around our planet . So perchance the last matter we need is everyone blasting clock time ejector seat satellites up there that do nothing more than just string up around , in the way of life , for 100 years .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

[ University of Michigan : M - BARC ]

Correction , 3/14/17 , 12:17 p.m. : The University of Michigan M - BARC team has provide additional details and clarifications on why its cubesat satellite requires its own actuation system of rules : “ The propulsion scheme is not to counteract Earth ’s gravity , but for the spacecraft to strive a final , stable orbit . The spacecraft will be set up into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit ( GTO ) and the propulsion system will shift the arena to a modified GTO . ” ( To assure the cubesat avoids the most crowded areas of Earth ’s orbit . ) “ The perigee ( close detail in orbit to earth ) will be raised from ~185 km to ~2100 km and the apogee ( uttermost point in reach to earth ) will be reduced by ~200 km for two reasons ; to stay in a stable orbit that will not decay , and to support by the 25 - class NASA orbital detritus rule where a spacecraft must not be in Low Earth Orbit , LEO ( up to 2000 km ) or Geosynchronous Orbit , GEO ( 35,786 km ) for more than 25 years . ”

The squad also want to elucidate that after 100 twelvemonth the guile wo n’t come doss down down to Earth by itself , but will be dependent on a succeeding team of students to come up with a way to retrieve the artificial satellite , and the messages it ’s preserving , from orbit .

William Duplessie