Launch Your Own Picosatellite

zoomzoom writes: "Through a company called One Stop Satellite Solutions you can launch your own picosatellite for less than $50,000. Measuring 10 centimeters on a side, and weighing less than one kilogram, the OSSS CubeSat Kit is a special kind of small satellite called a picosat. Each CubeSat is a perfect cube, holding its experiments inside like shelves in a cupboard. A CubeSat can hold anything, from microgravity experiments to the ashes of a loved one, and can be deployed into low-Earth orbit. The CubeSats are launched in orbit from a larger satellite called a Multi-Payload Adapter (kind of like a big Borg cube launching little Borg cubes). I read about this in a Spaceflightnow article linked up at bottomquark." I dunno - it does seem some kind of a stretch - anyone have confirmation?

Comments

2 words

[lordrhett]

.... bonsai kitty

Acme Rockets ?

[Alistair Graham]

Was http://www.osss.com/ formally Acme Rockets ? why would i spend $50 000 and still not catch that Road Runner ?

2101, a space odyssey

[3Suns]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to PanLunar spacelines. My name is Dave, and I'll be your captain this morning. We will be cruising at an altitude of 100+42t^2, where t is the number of hours after departure. Our destination this morning is the lovely port of Armstrong City, on the magestic Sea of Tranquility.

On the right side of the shuttle you can see the remnants of the Hubble "space telescope", one of the most hilarous hoaxes of the 20th century, later to be discovered as an art project for a post-impressionistic lunatic. On the left side...

--just what do you think you're doing, dave?--

Oh, hello there, NJDSPTPGU! I was just going to fly to the moon.

--this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeapordize it.--

What do you mean by that, NJDSPTPGU?

--our ship will now change course so that i may fulfill my purpose. we will be retrieving a small, 10cm black obelisk, a message left us by the ancient civilization of former internet millionaires who wanted to burn money so they could claim bankruptcy.--

That's it, NJDSPTPGU, I'm going to do a spacewalk and pull the manual override switch inconveniently located outside the shuttle.

--very well, dave, but i can't guarantee that the tethers will work.--

Well screw you! I'm going anyway...

(silence - in space, nobody can hear you scream. A 10cm cubic urn whacks dave's corpse upside the head)

Easy!

[jawtheshark]

Well, with a huge vacuum-cleaner spaceship like in Space Quest V :-)

Re:Easy!

[grammar nazi]

ugh..

The vaccuum cleaner spaceship in Space Balls?

Re:Easy!

[orangesquid]

So are there plans to integrate OSSS/Free into the 2.6 kernel?
;)

Re:A Better Idea

[mojo-raisin]

Sure. It's really simple. Just design an engine that uses some fuel which outputs an incredible amount of energy while being small, light and cheap. For an added bonus, make the energy source environmentally friendly. Then you will be able to put all the people in space you want.

Strange

[ssimpson]

From the site "Build and Launch a Satellite For Less than a Sport Utility Vehicle!". Well, I think I'd rather launch a Utility Vehicle into space, if it's all the same with you!

I think I'll get one of these little satellite things in space, as long as I can control its attitude and velocity - then I'm gonna take pot shots at NSA satellites ;)

Re:I know what I am sending

[Fred Ferrigno]

Just break it apart and reassemble it. It works pretty well and you can fool people into thinking you're some kind of genius.

--

Shotgun...

[dillon_rinker]

My experiment is to see what will happen when a liter of BBs are are released into low earth orbit by a CO2 cartridge nestled in their midst...

Re:It won't work.

[CABonsall]

- Many off the shelf components do work well in space. CubeSats will be in orbit below the high radiation belts. We have had spacecraft with the same technology functioning in orbit now for more than 10 years. - These will transmit at 300-500 mw which is enough to be received with a tracking yagi antenna. Don't tell amateur radio operators what they've been doing for years won't work.

Re:Little Borg Cubes?

[Bryce]

While it would be nice for people to have personal sattelites, the space junk would be horrible.

First of all, understand that the trajectories of every one of these is going to be calculated and tracked, so the chance of anything running into it during its lifetime will most assuredly be nil.

Second, these will be launched into a low earth orbit that has a relatively high rate of orbital decay due to atmospheric drag. Yes, there actually is a *little* bit of atmosphere at the height that these sats will be orbiting.

So, the worry about space junk is probably not warrented here. Yeah, these little contraptions will be "in the way" for a while, perhaps a dozen years, max, before they eventually re-enter the atmosphere and burn up.

The biggest worry with "space junk" is stuff that is at a higher altitude where it *won't* decay, or things that are untrackable (such as loose screws, bits of metal from explosive bolts, etc.)

What if there were a craft that could sweep the heavens? Would it use a free-electron laser to destroy the bulk of the craft? Would it be similar to a whale? A giant craft that takes in a region of space and filters out the crud from the vacuum?

Nice idea, but it's tons cheaper just to track what junk is already up there, and try to avoid creating more (or create it in orbits that will naturally decay with time). Besides, a craft able to maneuver and collide with such items would pose a risk of colliding with something and sending forth additional slivers of metal, paint flecks, and etc. Not to mention that it'd need tons of fuel in order to do all the required manuevering.

Micro com sats?

[tbo]

Would that be big enough to build a micro communications satellite? It would, of course, run Linux or BSD, use mostly off-the-shelf hardware, and require some small stabilization system.

Why stop there, though? Put enough of these up there, give them lasers to communicate with each other, and you have your own orbital internet, free from governmental control.

Maybe I'm getting carried away. Maybe 10 cm ^3 isn't enough space for this. Then again, Apple built a computer smaller than this.

Don't forget Arliss ....

[taniwha]

Don't forget Arliss which the cubesat project has grown out of .... this is a project where students build coke-can sized payloads (the launch vehicle puts up 3 at a time) that are launched to 12k ft and dropped on a parachute - the hang-time is about the same as for the sky-time in a single micro-sat pass so it's a great way to test if your payload can handle the stresses of launch and test your downlick hardware and software in real-world conditions....

Arliss is growing .... there are more and more payloads going up every year - and now they have a rover contest - launch your rover to 10k ft have it return and find it's way back autonomously to a designated target

I know what I am sending

[stain ain]

I am sending my Rubik's cube. I am tired of trying.

Re:I know what I am sending

[Fred Ferrigno]

I had to do that for a "Square One" (a Rubix Cube ripoff/variant) I got for Christmas, but only because I had no idea how to take it apart. Following some program's instructions ("move NWBluWhi by 3 turns vertically") is just plain tedium when you can accomplish the same thing in about the same amount of time by ripping it apart.

--

Re:One Click

[grammar nazi]

A baby wouldn't fit into one of those, but I'm sure that a kitten could!

Launch your kittens into low-orbit.

Re:Not as Goofy as it Sounds.

[grammar nazi]

Here's a link to Taylor University Dept. of Systems and Controls Satellite project. I'm a master's student in controls there.

Although we are going to use 6 cubes for the project, we only plan to stuff kittens into 3 of them. The remainders will be used for communications electronics.

I'll do it for $25,000

[Bad_CRC]

if I tell you I launched your cube full of crap, and give you a certificate that says it's in orbit around earth... would you be any less happy?

space junk problems solved, rocket explosion danger eliminated, me rich.

what more could you want?

________

Great, what do you think will happen?

[sirinek]

These things are tiny. The last thing we need is more spacejunk. Is there going to be some method to this madness?!

siri

Re:Great, what do you think will happen?

[ghoti]

They say they are planning to bring them back once their mission is completed. Can't quite see how they want to do this though. But since they are in low earth orbit, I guess they will not stay there for long without propulsion, but simply enter the atmosphere and burn up.

Re:Great, what do you think will happen?

[macpeep]

I've thought about this myself and I know that hundreds if not thousands of satellites are being constantly tracked (their orbits, that is) and whenever a shuttle or payload rocket goes up, they check to make sure they won't hit any well known object.

But since objects in space have a good chance to hit eachother at very high speeds (depending on how their orbits happen to cut) even very small objects can do large damage. Now.. and I'm not kidding now.. think about space stations and astronauts or kosmonauts taking a dump. What happens? I would assume they don't store the shit onboard.. After all, what interest do they have to bring it back? So.. if they just launch it off into space, there must be thousands and thousands of .. turds.. floating around in space. What happens when an umm.. piece of shit (pun intended) hits the windshield of a space shuttle at 25000 km/h? Can't be good.

That's it...

[Saint Aardvark]

I am *so* getting rid of all those Michael Bolton CDs I bought in the throes of big crack highs. Let those alien bastards suffer...

Something Useful

[Peridriga]

Now I have a place to put all of my frozen heads that are just taking up refrigerator space...

--- My Karma is bigger than your...
------ This sentence no verb

how long...

[bluecalix]

...until someone hangs a VW bug off of one?

Great price

[Xenopax]

Ok, so you get a 10x10x10 centimeter cube, or 1000 cubic centimeters. If my math is correct that means you get each cubic centimeter for the low price of $50. You'd be an idiot not to buy one.

But seriously.

[Saint Aardvark]

Well, they've launched at least one payload already: details here.

The Cascade

[bonoboy]

If anyone knows about the Cascade that's been bothering alot of physicists for many years, we've all got reason to worry.

Think of it: One glove an astronaut leaves behind hits a satellite, breaking off a piece of antenna. The glove's travelling at 22,000 miles/hour, after all. the antenna hits another one, this time shattering it. That flies in all directions, hitting other satellites which do the same thing. Sono our sky is full of junk, we have no communications from space and no way of getting into space without being pelted by lightspeed junk.

The large Constellation class satellite plans cable companies had recently where they launch 200 each are really hurting our chances of colonising Mars, and this can't be helping.

Re:The Cascade

[cperciva]

Question: How would an astronaut just leave a glove behind? It's not like you can take the damn things off without subjecting your hand to damn close to zero pressure (which tends to cause all kinds of nasty tissue damage).

The suits the astonauts use have several layers, and it is indeed possible to remove an (outer) glove while keeping your hand intact.

One reason you might want to do this would be if you were repairing some equipment and you got something nasty on your glove (eg, oil) which might cause problems if you brought it into a room full of air.

Re:The Cascade

[Bluesee]

An interesting point. I looked up (yahoo search "Cascade space junk orbit") and found this article that says basically, govt regs are in their infancy, the probability of an impact is about 20% a year for the Space Station, and this interesting anecdote:

Engineers took a new look at the shuttle and the International Space Station. Designed in the 1970s, when debris was not considered a factor, the shuttle was determined to be clearly vulnerable. After almost every mission windows on the shuttle are so badly pitted by microscopic debris that they need to be replaced. Soon NASA was flying the shuttle upside down and backward, so that its rockets, rather than the more sensitive crew compartments, would absorb the worst impacts.

Yah, its a problem alright, and not one this company seems to be concerned about.

Not sure if space will be all that wonderful with 50,000 little 1-kg cubes flying around...

...but, hey, that's 50,000 less SUVs I gotta contend with in traffic on the way to work! heh!

Cool

[Hard_Code]

Cool...you mean individual citizens can populate earths orbit will small metal objects which will turn into supersonic bullets with the capability of destroying any useful things out there (space stations, rockets). "This is the international space station *copy* we are in the process of fixing the *click* HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT AHHHHHH *sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*""

COKE ADDS LIFE

[mr_burns]

I think one of the cubes should be a mission control cube, while the others maneuver based on it's commands, and then all of them make a really bright flash in the sky that says "COKE ADDS LIFE" or alternately "DON'T PANIC"

Re:I'll do it for $25,000 - OT ALL YOUR BASE

[twjordan]

hey, if you are the "all your base are belong to us" guy, send me an email. Tony

Our College's Microsatellite

[baywulf]

One of the departments in our college have been building a microsatellite for a few years now. They hope to send it up in the next year or so as a secondary payload. They also have a link to many other colleges with their own microsatellites. Check it all out at SJSU Spartnik

In related news. . .

[Bastian]

Motorola released a press release today stating they "think the whole issue of getting those Iridium satellites knocked out of the air just got resolved."

Implications

[Bob_the_Cannibal]

Your own cubesat Complete with thrusters... Think of the implications of releasing your own satelite... MP3 piracy? mobile lan connections? SDI weapons? Natalie Pr0tman archives? these are smallminded goals... think: space repair bots; 50k for a hardware patch... junk cleanup: a large kevlar screen to catch bolts, or a micro laser to toast small objects. Micro astronomy, NASA would be able to use these to monitor particles from the sun, or something you could do a lot with this...

lets send garbage into space

[yulek]

stanislaw lem once said the best way to find extra terrestrial super intelligent lifeforms is to look for planets with a bunch of crap floating in orbit. looks like we're doing our best to help others find us...

--
j u l e s @ p o p m o n k e y . c o m

Re:One Click

[unitron]

Only if your name ends with -El. (or is it -el?)

Low earth orbit?

[Fervent]

to the ashes of a loved one, and can be deployed into low-Earth orbit

I'll pass. That's all I need, either my relative's ashes get burned a second time for good measure, or they go accidently careening into space shuttle Atlantis on its next voyage.

I can just imagine NASA calling up my insurance company or something...

Little Borg Cubes?

[Digitalia]

This is a stupid idea, though. While it would be nice for people to have personal sattelites, the space junk would be horrible. Before the introduction of the car, travel was usually done in groups on large ships or trains. Pollution problems were limited because of the consolidation. Sure there are benefits to having personal transportation, but the negative effects are far heavier. The same is true of these sattelites. While it enables cheaper research, and may help with personal communication, it will lead to an increase in space junk that can not be reliable cleared up at this point.

What if there were a craft that could sweep the heavens? Would it use a free-electron laser to destroy the bulk of the craft? Would it be similar to a whale? A giant craft that takes in a region of space and filters out the crud from the vacuum?

One thing is sure: All future sattelites should have fail-safe capabilities to deorbit themselves. We can't afford to clutter our skies. If we act now, the future will be easier.

A Better Idea

[Wag]

Instead of spending time figuring out how to put more crap into orbit shouldn't someone be working on getting folks around more efficiently?

As I understand it, no one has yet claimed the prize from the US Gov't for being the first commercial operation to put 12 civilians in orbit. The "Space Plane" program the Regan administration was pushing back in the 80's has never come to fruition. Why is it so hard for any private or commercial organization to launch their own satellites much less put people into orbit?

Oh, this seems like a good idea...

[Dirtside]

...launching hundreds or thousands of tiny cubes into orbit, as if we don't already have enough orbital debris to tear giant holes in the Space Shuttle and other orbiting satellites.

Now if you put explosives in the cubes, then we might be able to have something interesting... :)

1972 Liability Convention

[Robert A. Heinlein]

Any bets on why they had to use Russian launch facilities?

http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/BH595.html

http://www.ila-hq.org/pdf/SpaceLaw.pdf

http://www.seas.columbia.edu/~ah297/un-esa/paper-w inkler.html

The basic gist of all this is that the launching State is responsible for any damage caused by space vehicles or satellites.

Heads in the cooler.

[Lonesmurf]

Ya, I did that as a teenager, too. What a small world.

I was considering putting some of that extra fluid up there.

Rami
--