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PicoSats And CanSats And NEAR, Oh My
Snot Locker writes "As a followup to a SlashDot article posted last February, one of the picosats launched by students last year is still alive and well. Here is the article. What is even cooler is the link therein to the story on Coke-can satellites launched with amateur rockets!! My favorite CanSat story is at the end of the article where the prof caught the can before it landed." And we have the sad duty of reporting that NEAR won't be flying again after all. There's a great quote from one of the scientists about NEAR's current fuel level.
We know we're not putting them in orbit (we launch to 100k ft from the same site - and even 20 miles up aint LEO either :-) the idea is to get some really cheap experience at doing something real.
BTW they have an autonomous rover competition - same payload size as the usual 3 coke can deployment system - we drop it from 15k - you have to make it come back to a defined spot (it's on an almost flat playa so it's easier than you think - you do have to dodge the cars parked around the launch site :-)
The coke cans are dropped out at only 12k ft (the launch vehicle puts up 3 at a time) they are 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 (dates for this year are here) - 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
also hear plans are being made to extend the launch sites across the country
Maybe the Heaven's gate cult survived after all.... Just landed on the wrong celestial object.
Shayne
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
They aren't satellites. Satellites enter orbit. The devices are little instrument packages that are launched on ballistic flight paths and then parachute back.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Also interesting, appears that even John Carmack has donated to the cause :)
(Good luck JP!)
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
How can it be called a satellite if it just goes up 3 miles then parachutes back down? They'd be better off dropping them from weather baloons - they'd go higher, and it'd be cheaper to 'launch' them.
While I think it's a cool project, if it don't orbit - it just ain't a satellite..
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Oh my.
I can see someone in the ufo community going on about Nasa photos of alien footprints on the asteroid.
which is NOT what Nasa said.
I do not mind being entertained by the whackos on late night radio, but I can see this getting out of hand.
[sigh]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Jez,
:-)
you want to give these cans some hang time dump them out of a plane.
Satellite requires an orbit not a descent
'Slashdot, news for nerds. Stuff that matters.' What a joke!
It might be of some interest that the recent military space wargames actually included pico sattelites as a possible threat.
In this case though, the pico satellites, because of their relative ease of construction, were actually the red teams threat (red usually is the enemy to the united states, whearas the US is blue. In this case, a country like Iraq was the enemy).
In this case the sattelites would be used as small explosive devices, set into orbit to collide or come near a US sattelite, (communications or spy) and destroy it, cripling such systems as surveillance or GPS.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Well, the amateur rocket community is largely self-regulating. HPR vs amateur is a distinction that allows people to lauch big (100lbs+) rockets under hobbyist rules. This means commercial "hobbyist" motors (up to O class, i.e. 16000 Estee's A engines,) with only minor BATF and FAA involvement. Amateurs also launch rockets in this range, they just have different goals.
High power rockets use commercially available motors that are certified by a governing body. Amature rockets use motors designed by the person launching the rocket and require a lot more knowledge and money (not to mention time) to launch safely. It's a very expensive hobby whereas I could afford to do High Power rocketry while I had my forst job working 8 hours a week at Taco John's High power rockets generally don't go much higher than this, and amature rockets are much more expensive and involved (high explosives certification, etc.).
Much amateur rocket experimentation is concerned with relatively low powered motors. You try to get data with 1kg motors before you scale up to big stuff. NO rocketeers need high explosives permits (HE doesn't work for rockets.) A low explosives user permit is required... I have one, as do most serious HPR and amateur rocketeers. A LEUP lets you own/use up to 50K pounds of fuel: enough for any orbital shot.
I can't really see a college using amature rockets as a mandatory part of the curriculum.
There are many reasons to go immediately to amateur class rockets: liquid bi-prop and mono-prop rockets have a great bang for the buck; commercial HPR motors have sales restrictions that burden educational institutions; educational institutions get a free waiver from many of the Fire Code regs that affect hobbyists.
A quick run through a rocket sim package (e.g. Rocksim 4.0) shows that an HPR rocket cannot exceed 70k feet or so. Those of us that are thinking about orbit are immediately in the amateur category, but we run our tests in the HPR regime for as long as possible. The cost curve (other than time spent on the phone,) doesn't really jump at the HPR-amateur boundary though.)
Now we just need to convince Coke (with the threat of going to Pepsi) that this is worth the investment. Order it online, and in 15-20 minutes a can of coke will parachute onto your front lawn.
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.