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Using an Old Space-Suit as a Satellite
Andrew-Unit writes "The ARRL has an interesting article about an amateur satellite project where some amateur radio electronics will be crammed into an old spacesuit and chucked out of the window of the International Space Station."
It's only radio machinery.
btw, is this FP?
The best planning can be done after the project completes.
... and so the 1st Inglewood satellite is launched...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Do we really need more space junk orbiting Earth?
What does a spacesuit have that a box of quarter inch steel plate doesn't? I bet the suit weighs alot more and I KNOW the electronics dont need a human atmosphere.
Is that an antenna in your pocket...?
In space, one doesn't 'chuck' - one 'deploys' ie:
Space: "Then we will deploy the space suit..."
Earth: "Vern chucked his fast food container out the window of his car"
Other permutations do not work ie:
Officer: "What do you think you are doing?"
Vern: "Hey officer, just deploying my garbage..."
AT&ROFLMAO
I find it amazing (and heartening) that in this world of money, and greed, that some people will build satellites, and get them launched into space, purely so Amateur Radio hams can bounce off them and talk all around the world. I've never done it myself, but I've watched someone going in on 2 metres, and hearing their output on 10. You only get a few minutes before the satellite disappears below the horizon again, but it's still cool.
You could also listen to Mir on 143.625.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Aliens will be deterred thinking that they are cops orbitting around earth!!!
hilarious
It seems the only 'amateur radio' equipment to be included is a single transmitter - everything else is going to be a bunch of CDs with school artwork on them - it's not clear whether the contents of the CDs are to be transmitted, or just, rather pointlessly, IMHO, held in orbit....
But throwing it out of thewindow of the ISS? come on, this must be a joke. why would you want to do that? It costs (hundreds of) thousands of dollars to get a few kilo's in that orbit. If you are able to spend such an amount of money, surely you can make/buy something better than that? If this is real, then maybe the russians don't have such a crisis with paying for their progress supply ships after all. I propose reducing ESA's budget by the estimated worth of this frivolous spacesuit in orbit.
On the other hand, if the spacesuit is already up there and needs to replaced anyhow, then I'd say go for it. It certenly tickles the imagination as the following discussions will prove..
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Assuming it will be facing in the correct direction it should give the first point of view of a person stranded in space re-entering earth's atmosphere.
"Here's you in space... here's you coming home..."
enclosing the guts of the satellite -- i.e. the technology -- in a shell such as this seems a pretty good idea. since the space-suit isn't brittle, it should be less susceptible to shattering by micro-meteorites and space-debris.
i guess power supply would be a problem though?
..after traveling for thousands of years, an alien crafts effort of final contact is foiled after crashing into, what appears to be- a satellite wearing spacesuite, just beyond the earths atmosphere..
In case it gets hot, perhaps?
.. future-Gryllidae-overlords-of-the-earth archeologist clique, collecting space debris for detailed analysis, find an old 'human skin vessel' floating out there, ever-watching, ever alert ..
its enough to make you want to chitillate ones carapace, ew.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I hope my wife doesn't read this story. Otherwise the next time she goes to throw out all my "lucky" (read:Confortable) shirts she will just tell me "I am redploying them"
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Contacts made from/to the ISS
Official NASA ISS Amateur Radio Page
ARRL ISS Page
It's incredibly easy to talk to the ISS from the earth... you don't need a particularily high-powered radio to do it. In fact, the radio on the ISS is a plain jane, Kenwood dual-band radio.
"I think I can get him before he gets there... he's almost in range."
"That's no satellite! It's a space suit!"
"It's too small to be a space suit."
"I have a very bad feeling about this."
Exactly, besides it looks better than duct tape.
--Residential Interior Design
Why would the ISS have windows that open??
I plan on doing the same thing with some old gym shorts and my car next week.
Be a great joke to play on the new guys. The first ghost story in space. And they say old Bob still orbits around these parts, forever relaying ham radio signals.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
That would seem to indicate that if the ISS didnt make any prograde burns, it too would be entering the atmosphere in several weeks.
I say wierd because I had presumed that ISS, like Mir would take a few months to reach an unrecoverable orbit which would lead to a re-entry.
SO, they throw it downwards when they launch the suit? Well, Im no physicist - and this is only what I remember from my school days; if you were to throw something downwards with the maximum force available to a human from the ISS, then the object would return to you hours or days later because its angular velocity in relation to the orbit wouldnt have changed.
In order to actually alter the continous orbit of the suit as you launch it, you would have to either throw the suit out ahead of the ISS (To make it go higher) or throw it backwards along the ISS orbit to make it go lower.
However, I would rather suspect that an overhand throw of a spacesuit wouldnt make any siginificant difference in the time taken for re-entry to occur.
Come to think of it. - Every force has an equal and opposite. which indicates that the ISS crew are going to have to fashion some sort of rocket to get the suit going. - A small compresses air cylinder would come to mind but would be hard to aim. You could of course blow it from the airlock but youd have to correct the ISS orbit using Progress afterwards.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I like the part about the schools being allowed to supply one 8-1/2 by 11 inch picture, make absolutely sure it is in jpeg format because they burn up better, to be included on a CD, in order to be burned up with the suit.
....
Teacher: Mary, your artwork is so good, were going to burn it. And it's not going to be a normal "throw it in the incinerator" type of burn; we are going to burn it in the most incredible heat possible, and spread the ashes all over the planet so there is no possibility of recovery.
Mary:
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Ok, so given that it costs something like millions of dollars to launch even a small few pound payload, why the hell are they worried about the cost of making a real satellite? My understanding is that you can make something space hardened fairly easily (which is the only point of the suit, AFAIK) and that the vast majority of the cost of a simple satellite comes from the launch.
Plus, having a human shaped thing floating around in orbit gives me the creeps. Can you imagine what that looks like to other life forms? "Xzarg, look what these people do to their criminals! Fuck this, keep driving."
In the past, hams have had some high earth orbiting birds up as well, which have allowed worldwide QSOs. Oscar 4, AO-10, AO-13, and AO-40 were high earth orbiting satellites, capable of worldwide QSOs and extended operating windows up to 10 hours long or more. Sadly, none of these satellites is currently considered operational. Of these, AO-10 is brain dead and has no attitude control, but occasionally the solar panels and the antennas line up in a favorable orientation as it tumbles through space, and communications are occasionally possible. AO-13 and AO-4 have reentered the atmosphere, after partial failure of their secondary boosters, but provided some service. AO-40 suffered a crippling explosion onboard about a month after launch, but was partially recovered and provided an S-band downlink, along with uplinks on 70cm, 23cm, and 3cm IIRC. It suffered a catastrophic battery failure in January, 2004 and has been silent ever since.
Not to be discouraged, a new satellite, currently designated as Phase 3E is being prepared for launch by and will hopefully reach orbit later in 2005 or early 2006.