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Satellites on the Cheap
An anonymous reader writes "At a cost of just $50,000 - including plane tickets to the Alaska launch site - it was constructed using off-the-shelf parts not designed to withstand the rigors of space. Its life span was only expected to be a few months.
Six students put together the satellite last year after a three-year research and design project made possible with a grant from Boeing Co. The Department of Defense (news - web sites) Space Test Program approved the project and put it on a launch list""
Beats doing the egg drop.
Sure, a bunch of amateurs being able to develop a satellite on a shoestring budget makes for an interesting story, but to suggest that there will soon be a supply of reliable, ultra-cheap satellites is a stretch.
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I went to look up a few older stories on slashdot which, as I recalled, were the same story as this one. But I recall reading the other one's months ago. I was curious if this was merely a repeat so I scrolled to the bottom of the Slashdot main page and used the SEARCH option.
.com, I'm confused as to why this functionality would not have been added to slashdot by now. It makes it next to impossible to find older stories, because instead of stories about Boeing AND students AND satelites, I find stories about Boring OR students OR satelites.
Great, I thought, I'll just search for +Boeing +Student +Satelite or something of that sort.
I tried this.
And I was once again reminded, when I reviewed the results, that Slashdot, for some reason, doesn't have boolean searches. Now, for a site which champions Google "the home of the AND search"
This, as you can imagine, is not terribly helpful. It turns out that there are an awful lot of stories about Boeing or students or satlelites.
So, to recap, I'm pretty sure this story is a repeat (I'm sure someone else will go to the trouble of posting the exact references), but I'm damned positive that the Slashdot/Slash search feature is only marginally useful at its best, and outright useless at its worse.
Begin the down-modding if you must.
--
RumorsDaily
...there`s no such thing as a free launch!
Bruuuuhahahah...
You can find a picture of the satelite and a bunch of info about the project here. http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/pcsat.html
-Russ
Me
Somewhere (maybe here) scientists predicted that with the vast ammount of crap zipping about up there, the right type of collision (say bewteen a chunk of solar panel and a sattelite) could cause a chain reaction that would destroy every sattelite in orbit, and make it impossible to launch more.
-... ---
A team of 4 students from Devry Technical Institute cobbled together a nuclear submarine using parts scavenged from the set of Junkyard Wars, and a $300 grant from Kmart. Said the leader of the project, "We expected this thing to immediately sink to the bottom and begin its cycle of ocean-killing, but amazingly enough, it went down at a 30-degree angle, taking almost 3 times longer to sink, and it looks like it might pollute the ocean for many more years than we expected. It's quite incredible!"
This truly is a great day for amateur scientists.
Neither this article, nor the previous one posted on /. mention what the USNA plans to do with the satellite.
Ham radio operators all over the world (please view with Netscape; it doesn't load right with IE) use a nifty packet application, APRS through PCSat.
APRS is short for Automatic Position Reporting System. Basically, the satellite allows hams to send GPS reports (such as mine), short text messages, weather reports, etc. to a large number of users. The satellite acts as a 'digital repeater'. Any packet it hears, it send back to earth.
To hit the satellite, all you need is a hand held radio running less than five watts of power into the stock 'rubber duck' antenna. If you're a boater, hiker or whatnot that isn't in range of land communications, you can easily send your data through the satellite and have it relayed to a huge earthly footprint.
Over much of the populated world, there are land based digital repeaters that will relay these packets for hams. Many even gate the information to the internet where it can be viewed by anyone.
If you're the least bit technically and electronically minded, you can probably get the base level ham license (Technician) without any difficulty. It doesn't require a knowledge of Morse Code (CW) anymore. You can take the sample Tech test online. The sample test uses real questions right off the FCC exam. The test costs under $10 in most areas.
Using more than a dozen ham radio satellites for free isn't the only reason to get your ham license, of course. There's also that you can modify those 2.4 gHz network cards to run up to 1,500 watts of power legally instead of under half a watt as sold. Think what kind of distance you could extend your network! (And how many birds flying nearby will be microwaved!)
If nothing else, a ham radio license will get you another punch in your 'biggest geek' card. Who doesn't want that?
Matt (k4mls)
Polar orbit launches don't get much help from Earth's rotation, but they still have range safety issues: if the rocket blows up, will the wreckage land on anybody?
The U.S. launches almost all of its polar orbit satellites from Vandenberg AFB in California. By launching to the south there are no people for a very long way, should anything go wrong. The situation is similar for Alaska.
...laura