Slashdot Mirror
Students Design A Satellite Via Internet
Roland Piquepaille writes "A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments while the main satellite will test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read this summary for more details."
Great. But will it work properly?
Inquiring governments want to know.
Roland Piquepaille ? Isn't that the guy who posts summaries to drive traffic up to his website?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
.. a borg cube! it even has mini-cube satellites that make me think of decentralized systems (i know it's not, but that's what it makes me think of)
----
i do not use drugs, i AM drugs -- Dali
design to construction in less than a year
Great, they can build 2 more
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The first satellite has been automatically generated by the Internet. Pretty soon, the skies will be filled with satellites offering penis enlargement, Nigerian scams, and hot stock tips.
Can we please have a Roland Piquepaille section so we can block stories submitted by this yahoo? Please?
You probably shouldn't click this.
This is very impressive. The level of detail required on such a complex project is often daunting. To acheive a design with team members so far flung is nothing short of incredibe. I am not entirely sure what to make of it. It's a little like Linus' idea of "many eyeballs". Except in this case its not finding bugs its bulding satellites.
Imagine an extention of this work being used to solve problems and develop workarounds for breakage on the ISS or (dare I say it....) Mars.
This is really very cool.
Childe Roland to the dork tower came...
im so sick of this guy. i'd rather have Katz back. maybe.
with the collective thinking power of slashdot, I'm sure we could achieve something equivalent, or better.
imagine a large, spherical grey satellite...
any post made by the trolls against this satellite would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they have obtained. This satellite would be the ultimate power in LEO!
trolls: That's no communications satellite. It's a slashdotting station!
Students Design a Satellite via Internet
A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments while the main satellite will test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read more...
Here is what ESA says about this collective work over Internet.
Scattered in universities across Europe, a 250-strong team of students have never collectively met in person, but between them they have built a space-ready satellite.
Collaboration between the pan-European network of students, universities and experts involved in the Student Space Education and Technology Initiative (SSETI) has been carried out via the internet.
Now that the completed subsystems are being delivered to ESA's European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, remote participants from Italy to Denmark are eagerly following the integration process through daily photo updates, the integration logbook, and even a webcam.
What is the mission of this satellite?
Like a Russian doll, SSETI Express will carry inside it three smaller 'cubesats' -- 10-centimetre cube technology testers built respectively by universities in Germany, Japan and Norway -- for deployment when in orbit. The main SSETI Express satellite itself will test and characterise a propulsion system, return images of the Earth and serve as a transponder for amateur radio users.
The future SSETI Express satellite Here is a drawing of the future SSETI Express satellite. (Credit: ESA) It measures only 60 by 60 by 70 centimeters and is part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3. If everything goes fine, it will be launched in May 2005.
The SSETI team is already working on another satellite, the European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO). This one will be more complex than Express, weigh 100 kilograms, and it will be launched by an Ariane 5 rocket in 2007.
Besides these two satellites, the ESA looks at the future.
Coordination between groups is carried out using a dedicated news server and weekly Internet Relay Chats (IRCs) as well as the SSETI website. Face-to-face meetings are the exception rather than the rule, with group representatives meeting every six months for a workshop at ESTEC.
Beyond Express and ESEO, SSETI has hopes of becoming a fully-fledged facilitation network for all student space activity, with members carrying out detailed feasibility studies for a European Student Moon Orbiter (ESMO) a European Student Moon Rover (ESMR) and even an orbiter for Mars.
And here is the conclusion of Philippe Willekens of the ESA Education Department.
"This unique opportunity for students is also a unique opportunity for ESA to see how the young generation is working through a wide internet-distributed system, with little resources, but great enthusiasm and energy."
Good luck to all!
Source: European Space Agency news release, October 19, 2004
this could be used by terrorists to spy on God-fearing American citizens. Ban it! Ban it, I say!
In other news, GNU/Linux still remains the biggest projects ever collaborated on the internet.
This
Link to goatse!
Aha, an other HAM satellite! Don't forget HAMs will be able to recieve data from Mars if this mission succeeds. (ok, at 5 baud or so, but an interesting project nonetheless, and a reason for me to get a license.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
BUT WHO IS THIS Roland Piquepaille, AND WHY IS HE DISLIKED ?
it seems like more and more people are taking things into their own hands, bypassing the government agencies' bureaucratic process that goes for ages..
:p
we've seen the SpaceShipOne made it, and now a 'brute force' construction of a satellite.. this only leads to the question: what's next?? LEZ DO DIS!
-A simple hydrogen-powered car model that's ready to be mass produced? (instead of stuck being a prototype)
-better next-gen ASIMOs?
-advanced propulsion technology?
-human habitat for mars?
sheez, when I thnk about how people can combine their power and time to bruteforce-building something.. almost nothing is impossible
as for me, im still working on my warp machine
Attention Slashdotters: Join the fight against Roland by mirroring his content and not clicking through.
Roland "writes":
Students Design a Satellite via Internet
A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments whilethe main satellitewill test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read more...
Here is what ESA says about this collective work over Internet.
What is the mission of this satellite?
Here is a drawing of the future SSETI Express satellite. (Credit: ESA) It measures only 60 by 60 by 70 centimeters and is part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3. If everything goes fine, it will be launched in May 2005.The SSETI team is already working on another satellite, the European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO). This one will be more complex than Express, weigh 100 kilograms, and it will be launched by an Ariane 5 rocket in 2007.
Besides these two satellites, the ESA looks at the future.
And here is the conclusion of Philippe Willekens of the ESA Education Department.
Good luck to all!
Source: European Space Agency news release, October 19, 2004
Well I built my satellite out of an TI-89 calculator and some metal boxes. I programmed it myself and launched it using my model rocket. So there.
My UID is prime is yours?
Satellite launches YOU!
I read an article recently (http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~24 79286,00.html) that NASA can't get rid of Lockheed despite the cockups with Genesis, Mars Climate observer and Mars Polar Observer because Lockheed has too many of the people with experience. The only way to avoid this is to get more people in the loop.
NASA has a program where high schoolers can put together an experiment to be run in the pressurized portion of the shuttle, which is great, but doesn't compare to the fact that there are now three colleges that have experience building orbital devices and an untold number of individuals who were involved in the collaboration. If the ESA keeps this up we might see several european aerospace companies form in the next decade.
Look out Lockheed.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
courtesy of Pumpkin, Inc. (makers of the Salvo RTOS)
http://www.cubesatkit.com/
- but I did install the screensaver once..
Does this mean that all these years, satellite designers have NOT been using the internet?
overlords, but I ask what they hope to achieve by spying on us? I am the only one with any important data, and I keep it all in my head. I recently constructed a new piece of security headgear, the plans for which I will make Open Source after my death. Let's just say they don't even know I'm here when I'm wearing it, like right now (so they won't know I'm typing this).
sigs, as if you care.
Those guys , or perhaps another group using the same method, could form a reusable http://www.v2rocket.com/V2-like rocket laucher team to put this sattelite into orbit. That way, the full process (Sat/Rocket/Orbit) would be complete, not depending of the Russian/others to put it into orbit...
Just kidding. If there is a way to an easy $, it will be figured out. That is the nature of the universe.
I recall (was it slashdot?) that a university consortia launches mini-sats in the US. A mini-sat must fit inside a 10 cm (4 inch) edge cube and weigh no more than two kilos (4.4 lbs). The launch fee is $25K.
I work at a lab where we build comm sats for the govmnt and what these kids did has been done before [US radio amateurs put up the "echo" [sp?] sat last summer for instance] but not by so many, and not so inexpensively.
/.?
But where is the disclaimer that the notorious Roland is either under the OSTG umbrella or kicking back ad revenues under the table to
or maybe some of us are jealous our sumissions get roundfiled a lot more often than not?
they send Roland Piquepaille up on their satellite. I'm sure they'll find him a big asset to the mission.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
In a more "everyday" application, Martha Stewart is using the same collaboration techniques to connect 118 prisoners from 13 women's prisons to perfect her recipe for beef stroganoff...
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fp!
Last I checked, "the web" didn't include NNTP. Surely Slashdot is above the uneducated synonymity between the internet and "the Web."
Jeremy
Looking for a Python IRC bot?
That's nothing. A group of scientists invented the Internet without using the Internet.
You do know that goatse.cx has been suspended by the .cx people, and that your posted link is harmless, right?
The amazing thing is that they all did it from their parents' basements.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
NNTP is not in any way part of, the same as, or synonymous to the WWW. There may be web interfaces to NTTP but that does not make NNTP part of the WWW.
Everytime any sort of comparison comes up with respect to America versus Europe, all I hear from ordinary Americans or the political right is that European countries are on their asses and that America is the greatest country in the world, yadda yadda. I mean, after all, considering how "socialist" Europe is (at least according to the Right and most ordinary Americans), we are of course beating the pants off them at science, commerce, and of course economically.
Of course from time to time cruel reality intrudes upon that collective delusion. Like right now....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
If his shameless for-profit blog is not going convince you to reject his stuff, then surely the scandal regarding the non-existant "Tactile Digital Assitant" and the money they scammed out of poeple will?
If Slashdot cannot get some ethics soon, this place will become a spectacle.
...One-Click launch. Is it patented?
Table-ized A.I.
And here I thought the internet's use as a communications tool had become so commonplace that a story about some people using to communicate couldn't possibly be news worthy.
I guess small things just continue to fascinate some people forever.
I'm particularly excited about the success of this project because it ties into a project that I've been researching for a few weeks now but thought was impossible. Basically, it's using temporary subdermal GPS technology coupled with sats to enable the easy location and rescue of those who go missing in a hot zone (with my current focus being on Iraq/Afghanistan). Until today when I read this article, I was convinced that this would never see the light of day because -- even though I understood what needed to be done and could probably assemble a good group of people to do it -- I would run into government hurdle after government hurdle and the costs would simply be too high to do it privately. After reading this story though, I realize that isn't true and am quite excited about seriously pursuing this project! Now, to recruit, research, build and deploy.
I know there are people here who poo-poo this as something "already" done by the ham folks. But I believe that there is something substantially different about this success. On one hand, I think that we're going to see a lot of positives come from this. On the other hand I think there will be some negatives as governments start to realize that they no longer hold the monopoly on "gee-whiz" technology simply because they employ top scientists. They will be forced to sit up and take notice of private projects now and that could be a double edged sword. I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
Wow, that's some feat of engineering. And I thought the A-Team were ingenious!
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
...I'd rather see those same 250 students put together the ultimate CGI pr0no via the internet. Oh wait, no i don't.
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
Amateur satellites are of course nothing new, but it is great to see a bureaucracy like ESA more or less embrace the sort of chaotic collaboration that is one of the internet's strong points.
This satellite contains a container to dispense three even smaller (10x10x10cm, 1kg) microsatellites while in orbit. Here is one of them designed by students in Norway. Hey, some students from my department have been designing the communication subsystem for it. Good the launch has finally been arranged (NCUBE should have lifted off already according to the plans). If I recall correctly, one of the missions of the Norwegian microsatellite is to count reindeed (with little transponders) in Northern Norway, then dump the data back to the communication station on Earth. They are also putting a camera on it.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While I don't want to rain on their parade, this is only a single step in the process of building a flight ready bird. Doing it purely through the net is pretty impressive though.
But, in my experience building a CubeSat, it was the time from final "design" to flight ready status that went over time and over budget on every level. If they expect to have a flight model ready in less then a year they're dreaming, even if this was at one location with the team all centered and working together that's going to be pushing it. I can't even imagine trying to get the actual hardware working in a distributed environment like that. It was practically required to work in the same room as the other teams because of the level of systems integration. A single change in one area affected the rest of the subsystems. Or a simple question may take you through three other people and being able to just walk over and ask them the question was a hell of alot faster then emailing and waiting for a response.
Then there are the problems that come up with "final" hardware delivery. I've seen at least three revisions of each "flight" part, each one promising to be ready to fly right up until a test goes bad and we have to fix something.
Regardless to the challenges ahead, good job and good luck. It's always nice to see universities proving they can build faster, better, and cheaper then the big companies and doing what the "experts" say is impossible.
i wish i could find more detail than this
: www.estec.esa.nl/outreach/sseti/Textfiles/sseti.pd f+SSETI+internet+collaboration&hl=en
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:Z32wRgndSjYJ
4.2 Data/Design structure
During the design and building of the spacecraft, participants of SSETI will be located all over Europe. Thisresults in a very unconventional, new communication approach, which is called distributed development.The main characteristic of this approach is that modern communication tools (Internet, e-mail etc.) will beused to discuss and communicate with each other. A study has already started to establish thiscommunication network. This study also includes a large database with information about the Europeancapabilities of building micro-satellites.The structure of the data collection will take place in a similar way as used by the Concurrent DesignFacility (CDF) at ESTEC. All data, which is relevant for other users, will be stored in EXCEL workbooks.There will be 1 workbook for every subsystem, which will be accessible for all users. The interactionbetween the workbooks will take place via the Data-Exchange file. The only person authorised to change(update) this file is the Data co-ordinator.The official interaction between the teams will take place during sessions, which will take place each monthor every 14 days. During these sessions the changes in the system data will be discussed. These sessionsare the only opportunity to change data, which will have an effect on other sub-systems. Requests aremade by the universities to put topics on the agenda. The informal communication will be held with the helpof bulletin boards (Micro-sat study) and simple e-mail (mailing lists).
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Read this summary for more details
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This is not an Amateur Radio satellite, it simply has an amateur radio payload. The important point is not the ham stuff, it is the method (highly distributed) and the education value that counts... (all done by students)