Popular YouTuber and former NASA engineer Mark Rober spent $5 million of his own money to launch a satellite into space that can capture “the most epic selfies in the Universe.”
The Space Selfie project by Crunchlabs, Rober’s company, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on January 14, 2025. Rober just published a 21-minute video about the launch and the Space Selfie satellite that provides fantastic behind-the-scenes footage and insight into the massive undertaking, which took three years and millions of dollars to pull off.
Not to spoil the video, but the launch was a success, and the Space Selfie satellite, SAT GUS, has been orbiting Earth at 17,000 miles per hour from approximately 375 miles above the surface for a few months. As for why the satellite is named “SAT GUS,” it’s a funny story.
“Well SAT is short for satellite and you may have noticed it rhymes with Phat. Which just happens to be the name of the world’s greatest bushy-tailed athlete and four-legged physicist, Crunchlab’s squirrel mascot: Phat Gus. And that’s why they say you can’t spell ‘ingenious’ without ‘GUS.’ So yeah, our satellite is a she and her name is GUS. And she’s very happy about it,” Crunchlabs writes.
What makes SAT GUS special is that it has a camera and display system that enables it to both show a photo in space and then capture a second photo of that displayed image in front of the Earth — from space. Anyone can upload their family-friendly selfie to the Space Selfie system, and then the team sends that selfie into space, and SAT GUS “snaps a photo of your selfie with Earth in the background.” This space selfie is then beamed back to Earth, all for free.
The satellite features an onboard Argus camera, manufactured by Redwire Space, to capture its space selfies. The camera features a fixed 3mm lens and an f/8 aperture, with radiation-hardened glass. It captures 4,000 by 3,000-pixel photos, which is 12 megapixels. Since SAT GUS orbits Earth at about 375 miles above the surface, this ultra-wide lens can see a 600-mile swath of Earth’s surface when capturing selfies.
Each image is two photos combined. Images to be photographed in space are displayed on a customized Google Pixel smartphone, and the screen is much dimmer than Earth is in the background. The Argus camera captures one photo that exposes the Earth and another that exposes the screen, then combines them into an HDR photo. The team considered having the camera capture a third photo that could expose the background stars, but this would significantly slow down the capture process and limit the number of space selfies it could capture.
As AT_Builds on Reddit’s r/space subreddit shows, the Space Selfie project is the real deal.
“As a space nerd this is a dream come true! It’s legitimately an off-world selfie. This image was taken aboard Satgus on April 5, 2025, at 12:35:02 PM PST and later beamed back to Earth, I just received it yesterday,” AT_Builds wrote a couple of days ago. “Sidenote this is not a promotion of the SatGus program but Mark Rober has officially opened the satellite to the public for free and that’s just way too cool not to share!”
Others have been sharing the first batch of Space Selfies on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Thanks Team of CrunchLabs for the picture. ❤️🔥 #SpaceSelfie @crunchlabs Amazing pic.twitter.com/Rg9GCk8GsC
— Mario Luna (@MarioLuXxD) May 23, 2025
Thanks @MarkRober, @crunchlabs & @SatelliteGus
for the selfie over our TLP Space Coast HQ!!Honored to have been an early selfie on SatGus! #SpaceSelfie #SpaceIsBetterTogether #TLPNetwork pic.twitter.com/RY6ByozW7q
— Zachary “Astro” Aubert (@Astro_Aubert) May 24, 2025
Check out my Space Selfie! https://t.co/4MrgaSD4fH #spaceselfie #RobZombie @robzo pic.twitter.com/NCXIpF9Zel
— The Storm Guy (@Storm_Guy) May 24, 2025
2.5 years ago we rescued our beloved augacatero, Asic, from the streets of Surf City 1. Today he has been photographed from orbit.
Thanks @MarkRober and @crunchlabs for engineering the awesome #satgus #SpaceSelfie project, and the #Falcon9 team at @SpaceX for making it possible! pic.twitter.com/xwSXq6jMkd
— Two People In Paradise 🇸🇻🌋⚡ (@TwoPeopleInPara) May 24, 2025
While those who get in line now may not get a Space Selfie for a while, anyone 13 years and older is invited to upload their photos now. It is entirely free, but, of course, there are rules. The photo must be an authentic, family-friendly image that does not display illegal or offensive content. A complete list of guidelines is available on the Space Selfie website. As PetaPixel wrote last year before the satellite was launched, the program can capture a person’s photo when the satellite is above their location, so technically someone can be in the space selfie twice — once in space on the Pixel screen and a second time in the background on Earth. The Space Selfie program is an incredible achievement — space is truly for everyone.
Image credits: Space Selfie by Crunchlabs. Google and T-Mobile are partners on the Space Selfie project.
