You can now take a space selfie for free, thanks to Mark Rober

For years, space seemed like the realm of billionaires and scientists. Now, thanks to former NASA engineer and YouTube sensation Mark Rober, it’s also where you can send your selfie, for free.

Powered by a $5 million investment and three years of development, Rober’s company CrunchLabs has launched a satellite that lets anyone get a photo of themselves… from space.

The best part is, it’s free!

The Space Selfie project lifted off on January 14, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The satellite, affectionately named SAT GUS, now orbits Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, 375 miles above the surface. As for the name? “SAT” is short for satellite. “GUS” is short for Phat Gus, CrunchLabs’ celebrity squirrel mascot. Yes, seriously.

Here’s how it works – first, you upload a selfie on spaceselfie.com. That selfie is transmitted to SAT GUS, where it’s displayed on a customised Google Pixel screen. Then, a Redwire Space Argus camera snaps a high-res photo of the screen, with Earth in the background. The result is a composite image, captured in space, that’s equal parts science and spectacle.

The camera itself is no slouch. It uses a fixed 3mm lens with an f/8 aperture and radiation-hardened glass to shoot 12MP images. The lens is ultra-wide, capturing up to 600 miles of Earth’s surface in one shot. Each selfie photo is actually a blend of two images, one exposed for the bright Earth, one for the dimmer screen, merged into a sharp HDR final image.

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As Redditor AT_Builds put it, “It’s legitimately an off-world selfie.” Anyone aged 13 and up can submit a family-friendly image, just don’t expect instant results. SAT GUS is booked and orbiting, but space is now, literally, for everyone.