[nospecinterests]

This article is starting to bug me.

First, the author makes the claim that the team was given the McDonalds for use for this particular mission but that, as far as I know, is false. They have had the space for some time while they were restoring lunar orbiter images.

Second, the team's/company's news updates show that they had to buy more equipment than an old radio, a mac laptop and some parts to fix a broken tv, specifically, a software defined radio (sdr).

[humbert]

The team bought the old McDonalds for use as a hackerspace, and also to prevent it from being torn down.

Their $159,602 crowdfunding on http://www.rockethub.com/42228 paid for necessary equipment and services, the most expensive being access to large radiotelescopes to transmit commands and receive telemetry.

[shalmanese]

The software defined radio was donated by Ettus Research.

Source: My friend at Ettus worked on this project.