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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."

5 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.
  2. 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....