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50 'Nanosats' for Sputnik's 50th Anniversary

Posted by michael on from the sputnik-sailed-giggling-through-the-sky dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Europe will launch 50 ultra-small satellites in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite of the Earth launched in October 1957. BBC News Online writes that each nanosatellite will weigh only about 1 kilogram and represent a single nation. Arianespace will launch all 50 of the nanosats in a single payload. The nanosats will stay in orbit for about 2 years and will perform experiments chosen and designed by each individual country. For the first time in history, 50 different countries will have the opportunity to do space research, and probably at little cost. In the future, similar clusters of nanosats could be launched for collaborative missions, acting as groups or swarms and having a single goal. Read more for selected excerpts and pointers to this future historic mission."

14 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Shouldn't they split the payload up? by Bob+Bitchen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Doesn't it seem a bit vulnerable to have them all launched together? I suppose it's cost-effective but it with the nature of rocketry doesn't it make more sense in the long run to split the payload up into separate smaller rocket launches?

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    1. Re:Shouldn't they split the payload up? by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not a big deal. There is only 50kg of stuff here (50 sats x 1kg), so they are most definitely not launching that payload by itself.

      Every rocket has certain balance and performance parameters that it has to meet. If a rocket can launch a payload of 25,000 pounds, but the payload slated for that rocket only weighs 20,000 pounds, they will fill out the remaining weight with ballast, typically water or other heavy material. Sometimes, instead of using ballast, other smaller payloads can hitch a ride on the rocket essentially "for free". Sometimes it's literally free, if the owners of the rocket are charitable. But "free" here means that there is no weight penalty to the rocket, because it would have been filled out with ballast anyway.

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    2. Re:Shouldn't they split the payload up? by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It's not a big deal. There is only 50kg of stuff here (50 sats x 1kg), so they are most definitely not launching that payload by itself.
      Plus about 1-2kg of support structure and 1kg of release hardware per nanosat, plus about 3-5kg of control & power systems for the release mechanism. Still trivial, but not to be ignored.
    3. Re:Shouldn't they split the payload up? by JohnnyComeLately · · Score: 1
      they will fill out the remaining weight with ballast, typically water

      What? Where did you hear this? The cost for every pound of payload weight is around $10,000+. As an example, the Pegasus saved several hundred thousand in costs by making the Delta wing stronger with lighter mounting. If the payload is lighter, they just vary the build of the grain (solid) of the rocket fuel or load less liquid fuel. This is part of the reason we use "staging", to drop weight as the missile gets higher, plus the fact nozzles change efficiency with altitude. Also, any extra material becomes a ballistic projectile in space, so they're not going to load up "junk" or water just to occupy space/weight. This is why we've slightly changed the way pyrotechnic bolts and rods/springs work with release payloads, seperating upper stages, deploy solar arrays, etc. Believe me, there's already too much crap to track up there.

      John (13C, Space and Missile Officer)

    4. Re:Shouldn't they split the payload up? by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1
      I didn't hear this. I read it. On the Internet.

      Ballast is routinely used as payload substitutes on missle tests and maiden flights. Surely you knew that. Undoubtedly you did.

      You probably also know that payloads and rockets can fall apart of they are subjected to G forces that are too high. You will be aware that if your payload is too light, and you remove propellant to adjust the target trajectory, your rocket gets even lighter. You can't throttle your rocket that much in practice, and the thing accelerates faster than it was designed to. So, you suggest changing the grain of the propellant. That would also be a lot of work, because how do you know that the casing can take it?

      The point about the extra stuff being a problem in space doesn't make sense, because there's already rocket parts that will go into space, and the ballast would be attached. So, no extra objects in space.

      So, no need to explain staging and whatnot about rockets for me. I learned about that back in the 1960's when I designed the Saturn V. Just kidding.
      But I really do understand the beginner stuff, such as staging.

      Check out this page too:

      http://octopus.gma.org/surfing/satellites/sat_com. html

      It says this:

      Interestingly enough, the OSCAR series of satellites are actually ballast for larger primary NASA payloads. It's simpler and cheaper to ballast a rocket with dead weight rather than reduce the thrust.


      Surely, these guys would have noticed if they had paid for a launch out of their pockets. They launch all of their satellites basically for free as ballast on other rockets. This has been going on since the 1960's. Amateur radio people, launching their own satellites, as ballast, for free.

      I'm guessing that this 13C stuff is a military designation. Space and Missile Officer is the text tag that you use to pick up chicks at the bar. Damn, that's gotta work a hell of a lot better than my job title for that purpose. Am I right?

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  2. Roland P for Prez by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

    He's the king of self-promotion, so we know he has a chance of winning it.

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  3. 50 more objects for existing satellites to... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...collide with. I hope the idea of nanosats doesn't get too popular or it's going to get pretty scary trying to track all of the junk in orbit.

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    1. Re:50 more objects for existing satellites to... by BlankStare · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hopefully, before they come into wide-spread use, their "swarming" behavior can be designed to recognize that End of Life is near, and gracefully dive into the atmosphere. Or else we will need to periodically launch swarms of "janitors" to find defunct nanosats, and haul them down....

    2. Re:50 more objects for existing satellites to... by dougmc · · Score: 1
      I hope the idea of nanosats doesn't get too popular
      I suspect it already is. The amateur radio satellites, for example, aren't too much bigger than these. Here's a picture of the most recently launched one, `Echo'. Looks like it's only about 8x as big as the ones that are to be launched ...

      Hopefully there will be at least one amateur radio satellite with the 50 they're going to launch -- this form factor would seem to be ideal.

  4. Will/IS US among the 50 countries participating? by scupper · · Score: 1

    I read the BBC piece and Piquepaille blog, but didn't see a list of countries. Did I miss it, and is the US counted among the 50 nations participating?

  5. President Bush has announced... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Allowing 50 rouge nations to launch nanosats is too risky. One of the sats might be from "the terrorists".

    Flame on! Defend America- Defeat Bush. And while your at it, defeat Kerry too. Nader for president!

  6. Re:for all their whining about social causes by Thundertje · · Score: 1

    Maybe you should actually RTFA and conclude you are only blating alot of nonsense. Those nanosats are there for research, the celebration thing is a lucky coincidence.

  7. Re:for all their whining about social causes by grozzie2 · · Score: 1

    typical american attitude, you made the mess, you clean it up. There's no point in having our younger generation maimed and killed when you still have lots left to send over there. It's your mess, you clean it up. If you guys run outa young folks to send over before you clean up the cia created mess (yes, the cia did sponsor saddam into power), well then I guess we know who won....

  8. Yes! by deutschemonte · · Score: 1

    Now I can have a space linux cluster!

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