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Nanosatellite Satellite Inspection
Richard Lancaster writes: "A couple of months ago Slashdot carried a story about the SSTL SNAP-1 spacecraft entitled "Nanosatellite Takes Out The Trash". However, SNAP-1 is a nanosatellite technology demonstrator with a primary mission objective of performing on orbit remote inspection of other spacecraft. We have now carried out our initial remote inspection mission, the results of which are here, and also made an official press release here."
> Of course, part of me wishes they looked more like the repair bots from Babylon-5...
:)
I'll get onto our mechanics guys right away
Richard Lancaster
Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd
These are going to become the new assistants of the astronauts. I thought I saw a story once about a sphere like assistant. That was suppose to help the astronauts.
They are certainly still in production. I just received them as part of the 2000 US Mint Proof and Uncirculated coin sets that can be purchased from the US Mint.
Personally, I think they should be taken out of production. It's just as easy to carry two quarters as one half dollar. The fifty cent piece has about as much redundancy as a two dollar bill.
World Beach List, my latest project.
Nano-anythings floating around in earth orbit are a bad idea. We've got enough bits of crap and junk and hunks of old satellites zooming around at incredible speeds up there already. The last thing we need is a bunch of little damn 'bugs' getting lost up there, winged off a satellite by a discarded fleck of paint off of one of the Apollo mission craft. It'd probably latch onto the hubble and start fixing stuff it didn't know was broken to begin with.
Silly.
Blech. Signatures.
Hmm, doesn't seem like the nano did any on-orbit maneuvering, just detached itself from its booster and took a picture. It's not hard to make a satellite that'll last 10 minutes in space and performs 1 function. If it actually performed the rendezvous using its own propellant, i'd be more impressed.
:)
Anyway this looks like an anti-sat weapon in disguise -- oops, sorry, we just sprayed black paint on your recon satellite's solar panels!
Nano-Nano
No, seriously.. maybe they'll just call atomic-scale devices "atmospheric drag".
The US has had a 50 cent piece for quite some time. I don't know if they're made anymore, but they are out there. They're certainly not as common or popularly used as the other coins. And never will be, as long as the average soda machine does not accept them.
I remember a long time ago the post offices here tended to like to dispense those for change when getting a book of stamps from the machine. I went to a convenience store afterwards, attempted to buy a drink, and the clerk had to check with her manager to make sure the damn things were "real".
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
well nano meaning 10^-9 for units, this would say thaht "normal satellites should weight around 1000 tons ... :-)
So I also think that nano was a good choice to describe those satellites.
Chuchi
the cameras are ... each smaller than a 2 pence (50 cent) piece!
Methinks their UK-US Babelfish is broken, unless a 50 cent piece has been introduced recently in the US?
A 2 pence piece is about an inch in diameter, which I guess is just slightly larger than a quarter (I don't have one to hand).
Hmmm, maybe that's not just a fungus on Mir.
All we've done up with is an intelligent slime mold. Maybe the Russian space program is more advanced than we ever realized.
Are we prepared to shoot Mir out of the sky when it's "taken out of service" right into the Pentagon?
^_-
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NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I remember reading somewhere that the cost in fuel per pound is about 10,000 USD. Gotta remember the escape velocity of earth is about 7 miles/s
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I think they do freebies for humanitarian interests ... get cancer or loose a limb or something then maybe you'd have a shot.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
I was wondering how I could get one of my many projects into space...
:-) I don't see why they wouldn't... just have it ride piggy-back.
Will NASA/ESA/Russian Space Thingy launch anything I give them? How much would this cost? Say something that weights 1 pound...
That would be pretty sweet if they did.
But then it would have to be assured that the private craft doesn't mess with the real one.
Just wondering.
No, imagine. Large globs of nano-satellites. When they need to change orbit, they can lengthen themselves out into a cable (also usable for generating power), convert themselves to the tool of choice (adjustable wrench, pliers), split themselves into multiple parts when required in more than one place (one group to hold the parts together, the other to do up the nut), form into parabolic mirror shapes for welding, spread themselves out flat to shield from sunlight or as a solar sail, stand in for broken components on satellites. Very flexible indeed
Rich
dnnrly
I'd be worried about an application like this doing as much, if not more, harm than good.
For one thing, I believe one of the major things that kept the Cold War cold as the space race picked up was that the US and the USSR could each see, to some extent, what the other was doing... If one could've made a move without the other knowing, things could've gotten ugly.
Also, consider the ways in which the public has profited from programs of military application. GPS sattellites which were originally launched to aid the aiming of missiles are now used in cars, on fishing boats, on camping trips, and so on. Sattelite photographs used for geological surveys and mapmaking could easily be used for military logistics. Or, even worse, in the future, when scientists and civilians make their homes in orbit. How does a satellite aimed at 'taking out' other satellites make the distinciton? How do humans make the distinction for the satellites... and where does one draw the line?
Finally, consider this: Even given the low price tag on these satellites, I can think of a few ways in which these 'poorest of countries' that you mention might rather be willing to spend their precious funds. Food and infrastructure for growth would be at the top of my list.
Don't get me wrong... It's an interesting thought. I'm just not sure it's a can of worms that we really want opened up.
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Hold the mold, Klunk.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
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I agree with Kamel, this is a crock of shit.
Any further PR attempts by these people with no real results is just going to make people know what kind of idiots they really are.
And they're happy about these extra bits of orbital debris costing less than $1M?
Wholly shit!
What about when they lose one, and it kills some $20B Satalite?
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
I wonder if the NRO would be upset if someone launched such a nanosat and then wandered over to one of their spysats and started taking video. . .
Of course, for big satellites you can already get some idea of what they look like from the ground, but the nanosat obviously does much, much better.
Could this be the solution to the sateleite eating fungus? After all, if we can stick a high tech camera on it, how hard would it be to put a can of anti-fungul spray on it? I think these nanosattelites just put us one step closer to mantenience robots. Then true laziness can be achieved.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
Destroying multi-million dollar spy satellites of countries that have the capability to pretty much decimate yours isn't going to put you in good favour none the less. It's a sad reality, but there really isn't much that anyone could do about it - the US forces crippling trade embargos on any country that doesn't even have the same political views as it (Cuba, for example). There is one post (a very good idea I might add!) however which suggests making a bunch of these nanosatellites that could just sit in front of the spy satellite's cameras, now that would be wicked!
If there was ever another large scale global war, (I hope we're past that though) I wouldn't be surprised if this type of anti-spying tactic was employed.
UBU
The idea of having tiny little space going satellittes gave me an idea. Why not have lots of mini satellittes that are able to join up into larger structures in a sort of Lego type fashion. Stick some sort of short range radio communications gear on each one (along the lines of Bluetooth), and one piece of specialised equipment each, launch a big bunch of them into space, and have them communicate. If you need a machine to repair a space station a couple of solar cell satellittes and a few tool satellittes all come together, join up with a booster satellitte and get the job done. Then the solar cells could break off and manoveur to somewhere else they're needed. Much more effiecient than having big specialised bits of equipment, cheaper in the long run, and possibley adaptive too. Assuming its all possible..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
If/when we ever make it offplanet on a permanent basis, and these satellites become cheap enough to mass produce, they would be ideal for survey teams. On the Moon, these would require a lot less fuel and shooting one up into geosynch. orbit could be done with a portable launch system.
The U.S. shares much of its recon data with its major allies like the UK, Australia, Germany, etc., so they're not about to do anything to jeopardize that relationship. In fact, systems like Echelon are joint efforts, so they'd be blowing up their own equipment. Besides, as I hear every so often by Statists regarding police searches, "if they're not doing anything wrong, why should they object if we surveille their every move?" (In case it isn't obvious, this is SARCASM (a registered tm of Microsoft)).
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Probably the size of the transmitters able to send telemety to earth and the associated power supply systems are the big limiting factor - you could make a tiny satellite, but you couldn't talk to it...
Perhaps launching sats with mobile phone style repeaters will be a future solution - the minisats could relay through these, and have much lower power radio gear....
Dunno - what do you think?
When I were your age, all round here were fields...
What I would like to know is whether these satellites could be used to make sure that countries like America are unable to spy on other countries with impunity. Countries could launch dozens of these nanosatellites, and use them as kinetic missiles against spy platforms or other more dubious ventures such as Star Wars satellites.
This way, even the poorest of countries could afford to ensure their security from the prying eyes of expansionist countries intent on prying every secret possible from their so-called allies. I think this would make a valuable contribution to both privacy and democracy, and would be a worthwhile use of $$$.
Well I was under the impression that nano was supposed to mean small, like atomic small. If these satelites are between 1 and 10kg in weight that hardly qualifies them as nano IMHO.
What are they going to call real nano-satelites when the technology can get us down to the atomic scale?
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%46%55%43%4B !
ahhhhhh.....do you remember the bots from that movie Silent Running - Hewie, Dewie, and Louis if my memory serves me correctly. Weren't they lovely! Bless 'em.
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%46%55%43%4B !
At the current rate of this technology, I won't have to worry about cholesterol anymore; we'll probably have nanoprobes run through our bloodstream in the future, burning up that plaque in the arteries.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
If we even plan on having permanent orbital habitations, something like this is definately needed, both for removing debris from orbit, and to ensure the safety and integrity of such a habitat.
Of course, part of me wishes they looked more like the repair bots from Babylon-5...
NecroPuppy
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I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Amazing! It's even able to change the US/British exchange rates by an order of magnitude! Not bad for a sattelite that small.
I want to see the software they used to make 2 pence worth 50 cents. It's probably some kind of IIS hack they're not willing to reveal.
Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich hungrig.
This just shows how old I am, but the name SNAP originally stands for Space Nuclear Auxilary Power. Check out this badly mangled url for more information: http://spacelink.nasa.gov/NASA.Projects/Human.Expl oration.and.Development.of.Space/Human.S pace.Flight/Shuttle/Shuttle.Missions/Flight.031.ST S-34/Galileos.Power.Supply/Space.Nuclear .Power.System.Accidents
People should be a little more careful picking their names.
Ok, a farthing was a quarter of a penny before British decimalisation.