Slashdot Mirror
Mini Satellites Could Revolutionize Space Industry
An anonymous reader writes "Space Daily reports that University of Toronto researchers are working on a project that could replace conventional satellites with a miniature version no larger than a milk carton. From the article: "At only 3.5 kilograms, the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) will test small, low-power devices that could lay the groundwork for flying formations of small satellites that could eventually replace larger, more expensive satellites."
Is John Carmack building this gigantic hydrogen-powered trebuchet and launching milk cartons full of electronics into space
... I think this is a sign I should be sleeping at 3:35 AM and not reading slashdot
To bad other electronics didn't follow suit. I predict that within 100 years computers and hand held electronics will be twice as powerful, 10000 times larger and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own one.
If only we had an elevator to lift all those milk cartons.
Surely the costs involved include more than the satellite itself? I'm thinking 50 mini sats replacing 1 maxi sat will still need at least as many launches, quite probably more.
Maybe they're just after saving rooom - after all space as a whole is pretty darn cluttered as it is. It's amazing the planets manage to orbit without banging into each other more often.
"Clusters in Space-ace-ace-ace."
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Sure, smaller satellites, smaller payload => cheaper.
I fail to see why formations of smaller satellites should be a new development. If smaller types could accomplish the mission of bigger ones, the big ones wouldn't be up there (carrying large antennae, big lenses or whatever).
How is this going to work i wonder ?, what with all the junk already floating around out there since the late 60's and with the space station how are they going to keep other junk from junking their new baby satallites ?. just a a thought. CH
If it only took 6 months for NASAs Deep Impact probe to reach Tempel 1, why didn't ESA just send the Rosetta probe (with its comet lander) there, instead of waiting until 2014 (launched in 2004) for it to reach its destination? From the imformation i have read there is nothing to suggest a fundamental difference between the comets. If it came down to which mission was more "important", Rosetta would win hands down. Does anyone know the answer to this?
Denmark has all ready send two micro satellites. They measure only 10x10x10 cm!
They were send up 30. June 2003, along with some commercial satellites and were created as student experiments from "Danmarks Tekniske Universitet" (DTU) and "Aalborg Universitet" (AAU). The goal was to see if you could bring them up there and communicate with them.
You can read more about the two satellites here:
http://dtusat.dtu.dk/
http://www.cubesat.auc.dk/
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
Space Daily reports that University of Toronto researchers are working on a project that could replace conventional satellites with a miniature version no larger than a milk carton.
Or a thigh bone?
(Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra)
Thank you, sir. You introduced liberal handwring quite quickly in this topic. By the way, GW is not a Catholic, but the distinction is surely lost on someone as educated as yourself.
...I'll be going to the supermarket and asking for a six-pack of satellites?
Don't know about these, but Sweden is doing research on micro-satellites and those can be deployed within an hour or two using a normal jet-fighter (Viggen/JAS)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
One of biggest problems about orbit that there is already too much garbage round around the globe. It is creating significant danger to any rocket with men going up there. So collecting of this garbage sure will be next big enterprise after opening civilian space flight.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
These, and later similar designs, will survive any future anti-satellite attacks (for longer) by America due to being harder to hit. Hitting a milk carton in orbit can't be that easy.
Anyone who went to highschool knows all you need is PVC pipe, a sparkplug and a can of hairspray.
Looks like your business plan has already been tested.
Spaceballs!
liqbase
Hey, where is the milk!
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I couldn't get to the SpaceDaily article either. Thanks for posting the full article!
I think somebody needs to develop an ion engine for micro-satellites, then universities may be able to afford rockets like the spacex falcon1 which puts their satellite into low-earth orbit, where it uses the ion engine to build up its speed for escape velocity. Perhaps this is the next "killer app" for these private space enthusiasts. So far JPL is the only place to find a highly efficient ion engine. They just came up with a high efficiency, high-power design for project prometheus. Ion engine micro-satellite, watch for them.
It would be nice to be able so send a number of these system so that a small communication network can be set-up. Basically create a small commuication mesh. Each of the sats could have common capabilities (GPS sender, local comm antena, solar, batteries, etc), with each having a unique capability (camera, surface to sat. comm, etc). No doubt somebody will point out that these do not have enough energy (or space) to run a real science device. Yet, the ability to have redundant uplink/downlink comm, a GPS, and eve multiple cameras would be useful to future missions. If one mission to mars could put 100 of these in orbit, then it could be used by other missions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There isn't a whole lot of it actually. There is probably more tonnage in rocks floating around the planet than man-made debris. I don't know where that rumor started, all the man-made stuff is huge, huge empty tanks the ones you can see from the ground. All of them can be tracked with ground observation. Smaller stuff doesn't go that high.
The problem with garbage is that unless it's big enough to show up on radar you don't know where it is. The handy thing about satellites is that firstly you've launched them into an orbit that's planned not to interfere with other orbits, and secondly you know where they are.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
Lower cost, allowed maintenance, lower pingtimes.... i mean, why the hell are we still buggering around with satellites at all? surely stratellites offer so much more for less.
I've had this for a couple of other searches. Can't remember any offhand. I think it's some sort of fuck up rather than something by design as it only leaves about three normal search results.
Read before you mod up. Parent has inserted multiple typos and errors into the text. This is not 'interesting'.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
.. have been doing all of this for years and are considered by many to be world leaders in small satellites.
I see the same links when searching for:
slashdot
python
perl
freebsd
linux
I don't think they're paid links. It seems google is putting in useful links with results, if the first web page is very likely what you were searching for. Has anyone heard more about this, e.g. from google itself?
this is a bad idea. They use larger satelites to help slow the effects of gravitational decay. So, shouldn't shrinking the satelites and launching them in a swarm cause them all to drop faster.
Of course, I don't really know what I'm talking about...
SpaceDaily is not going to be /.ed. If Polarbeerdisorder is saying that s?he could not get to the site, it says that s?he is the AC that posted in the first place and is looking for the points. So hit them both, please.
The arrays mentioned here are a nifty piece of lateral thinking. Compare them to the giant detector arrays on earth; if you have two detectors a large distance apart, you effectively increase the aperture size to that large.
There's similar projects widely spread around the globe; by combining information from a wide array of detectors, you can eliminate significant swathes of atmospheric noise, and since you know which direction the arrays are pointing in, you can correct for depth errors electronically (ie if one detector is 90 round the earth from another, any signal that comes from that sector of sky will reach the two detectors at slightly different times (unless they happen to be at 45 either side of the signal) and the two signals can be shifted correspondingly to align the actual signal, whether it be emission from a star or the next wow signal.)
On the other hand, a satellite array would probably be non-directional - can't figure off the top of my head how a signal would currently directed from a satellite, since they'd be serving multiple devices at once.... hmm. Seems like with an array you'd have better scope for having a bigger aperture; though you'd get more chance for errors if the signal was coming from a direction further away from the vertical. Comments?
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
It is not the huge stuff that is a problem. It is the small stuff, such as the stage bolts that are exploded. These yield numerous small parts (.5-2 centimers), that are literally untrackable. Yeah, they are small, but then again 17000 Miles per hour is a LOT of energy. As to needing a garbage collector, well, a space laser can probably be put into space and used to start pushing small stuff down into the atmosphere. Friction is a wonderful tool.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
First story from : http://www.utias-sfl.net/nanosatellites/CanX2/
The CanX-2 Mission
The CanX-2 Mission is the second "NanoSatellite" Mission at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, Space Flight Laboratory (UTIAS/SFL). The Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiments (CanX) push the envelope of what can be achieved in space with small, low-power devices. With a focus on aggressive experimentation, CanX missions use the latest commercial technologies and manage moderate risks in exchange for low cost and quick turnaround. UTIAS/SFL is part of an international community of nanosatellite developers that share common launches to reduce costs.
At 3.5 kilograms and the size of a carton of milk, CanX-2 will be a pathfinder mission in 2006 to evaluate novel technologies that will be used on the CanX-4 / CanX-5 dual satellite mission in 2008 to demonstrate controlled formation flying in space. Formation flying technology will open the door to larger missions for highresolution Earth observation and interferometric imaging that can also be used for space astronomy. The technologies to be tested include a novel propulsion system, custom radios, innovative attitude sensors and actuators, and a commercial GPS receiver.
In addition to evaluating these miniature technologies, the satellite will also perform experiments for other university researchers across Canada. These include a GPS radio occultation experiment to characterize the upper atmosphere (Calgary), an atmospheric spectrometer to measure greenhouse gases (York), a network communications experiment (Carleton), and a space materials experiments (Toronto).
Second story from : http://www.spacedaily.com/news/microsat-05j.html
Canadian Researchers To Showcase CanX-2 Nanosat August 31
Toronto ON (SPX) Aug 30, 2005 University of Toronto researchers will demonstrate how a satellite the size of a milk carton that may revolutionize the space industry on Wednesday, Aug. 31, at 10 a.m. at University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) Lecture Hall, 4925 Dufferin Street.
At only 3.5 kilograms, the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) will test small, low-power devices that could lay the groundwork for flying formations of small satellites that could eventually replace larger, more expensive satellites.
At the demonstration, researchers will control the CanX-2 nanosatellite through a wireless radio link and download real-time images and telemetry from on-board equipment including a GPS-based positioning system, a miniature propulsion system and tiny devices used for sensing and controlling the satellite's orientation in space.
"The point of this mission is two-fold," says Professor Robert Zee, managing director of the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory (SFL).
"The first is to provide complete development cycle training for students through a real space mission that has to be completed in two years. The second is to launch a tiny research platform into space to test innovative, revolutionary technologies in a rapid, risk-taking manner and also to perform important science missions that are now benefiting from the availability of smaller and smaller instrumentation."
CanX-2 is the second nanosatellite mission at UTIAS/SFL. CanX-1, Canada's first nanosatellite and one of the smallest satellites ever built, was launched with the MOST microsatellite in 2003 by Eurockot Launch Services from Plesetsk, Russia.
Sidebar to Second story
In collaboration with researchers from across Canada, the primary mission of CanX-2 will be a GPS radio occultation experiment to determine vertical profiles of atmospheric properties. It will also perform a number of additional experiments including mobile ad-hoc networking, autonomous control, advanced surface mate
a beowulf cluster of these?!
;-)
Sorry, had to be said
Seriously though... this would provide for something that is pretty lacking in current satellites: successful redundancy.
If a satellite gets hit with debris or something, it's normally down for the count. You get a cluster of these mini satellites... all sharing the workload... if one gets hit, the rest just pick up the slack.
Plus this could open up all sorts of possibilities for amateur space exploration...
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
When did "trebuchet" overtake the word "catapult"?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
NO! It's a milk carton!
Got milk?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Do they run linux? Imagine a beowulf cluster of these =)!
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
I am certainly not the AC that posted in the first place! And I was not looking for points, and (obviously) the AC who posted wasn't either. Why would the mods mod up my post? All it said was "mod parent up, thanks for the article"! If this is the parent poster's idea of karma whoring, then I must say: "you must be new here". At least I don't hide as an AC when a post might damage my karma. I like to call it "integrity". The parent might want to exercise a little in the future.
I genuinely could not get on to SpaceDaily. Maybe it's a problem at my end, but I found the article text useful.
And finally, I'm sorry, but how am I to know the article text is incorrect if I can't compare it to anything? Besides, if it's just a few typos, then maybe those are honest mistakes by the person who typed it up?
There are actually many satellite projects for stuff this small. The space industry in Florida holds an annual competition for college students to design picosats called Funsat that uses the Cubesat format.
Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promo Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitl
You might be on to something there. The article goes on to explain that among other nanosatellite's, one called the QuakeSat is being launched. Now, they disguise the fact that it's for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars http://www.enemyterritory.com/ by saying that it's for Earth Quake prediction. But smart people like us know that the satellite would have been called an EarthQuakePredictionSat if that were true! It must be some sort of new network for the game. Maybe Carmack has figured out a way to eliminate the cost to space that causes players lag by overloading space with nanosatellites?
Or, perhaps the Strogg are true and we're all participating in a recruitment program to eventually become an Army trained to fight the Strogg off?!
And if a certain western power can use said laser in a SDI role (paying for it out of the military budget), all the better!
You can see for yourself the nonsense he/she has tried to insert in the article. It's just absolutely ridiculous. Why do some people spend their time trying to make life frustrating for others? Here are just a few of the discrepancies I noticed.
The parent:
The parent:
The parent:
The parent:
The parent:
An SDI laser would be a mistake. It is TOO powerful. It would actually cause the items to break it multiple pieces. Instead, a laser for this purpose would just "push" on the item to start a deorbit path (prebably pretty slow deorbit).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think you miss the point. Big satellites are insanely expensive to design, build, and launch. If your one Big Bird blows up on the launch pad, or gets hit by the aforementioned space junk, or is shot down by the North Koreans, you've just wasted the entire expenditure.
IF, on the other hand, you spend an approximately equal amount of money to build a swarm of tiny, cheap, simple birds, that together can do the same job as a big satellite (and have some redundency amongst themselves), you can afford to lose a few from time to time. There are less catastrophes that will deny your orbital presence entirely.
Plus, if your birds are the size of milk cartons (with a mass to go with it), your launch options are a LOT more flexible: instead of commissioning your own launch, you can piggyback on other launches at a huge discount.
Like with clusters of servers, disks, or whatever, flexibility opens up tons of opportunities to save money and be more robust.
It is creating significant danger to any rocket with men
Then send women.
Would it have killed you to say "people"?
Sorry, but I don't see how that could be at all profitable.
I mean, who would pay for such a service? Suppose the US did. Then the rest of the world gets a nice clean LEO without contributing a dime, freeloading off of their effort. If you tried to set up some international payment agreement, you'd get all sorts of bickering similar to the Kyoto agreements: why should third world nations pay, why should nations with developing space industries pay the same as behemoths like NASA, etc.
The problem with charging for the upkeep of near-Earth space is that it's accessible to all countries, and impossible to prevent those who don't pay from making use of your services (short of shooting them down, which just creates more junk).
If Mini satellites could revolutionize the space industry, think what big ones could do!
Milk cartons are Satellites
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
Q. What do you call large numbers of objects no larger than a milk carton moving at orbital velocity?
A. Shrapnel
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Why, I remember when Canadian satellites used to be suitcase-sized! Soon they'll be cell phone sized. (Luckily, in space no one can hear your ring-tone.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
http://www.sstl.co.uk/index.php?loc=47 Surrey satellites have been making micro-satellites and nano-satellites for a while. So what's new?
I'm just curious...
Will there be an added difficulty in tracking these due to their small size? Obviously, there's some plan to communicate with them. But, over time, as their numbers grow, and their lifespan runs out, will NORAD (or some such agency) be able to keep track of these? Small as they may be, they'ed still be big enough to cause major damage if they collided with a shuttle, or other sattelite.
Just another day in Paradise
Don't know about these, but Sweden is doing research on micro-satellites and those can be deployed within an hour or two using a normal jet-fighter (Viggen/JAS)
This sounds interesting. How are they launched? How light can something that emits a signal strong enough to be practical as a satellite get nowadays? What kind of rocket is the minimum necessary to get that weight into orbit? What's the cost of a launch?
MOST (aka the Humble Space Telescope) is the space telescope Canada can affoard: a small one. MOST was Canada's first space telescope and the first micro satellite I've heard of.
We had a full size replica at a star party this summer and this thing is small considering what it does. Really impressive. Small means also very affoardable.
I hear that there will be a competition for time on the MOST so maybe someone will be the first amateur to make use of a micro-satellite.
The problem is that they require too much power. 100 kilowatt power supplies can not be built into 10cm^3 devices, so I don't think this is going to work.
But imagine something like a big CD (or DVD). A thin reflective disk with a diameter of 2-3 metres. LCD shutters vary the albedo of parts of the surface so it can use light pressure to change orientation. It uses light pressure to navigate (slowly) through the solar system. You could stack 100 or more of them in a single launch.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
- Space technologists, knowing the throw-weight, cost, and $/pound of every every available booster..
- Having access to all kinds of miniatureized technology....
- Having access to custom-made integrated circuits, nimble-fingered assembly robots, a wide assortment of ultra-light alloys and composites....
- .... still opt to make large, heavy, clunky satellites.
I suspect they have been trying to make things lighter, smaller every since Vanguard lifted up that grapefruit.I mean, who would pay for such a service? Suppose the US did. Then the rest of the world gets a nice clean LEO without contributing a dime, freeloading off of their effort. If you tried to set up some international payment agreement, you'd get all sorts of bickering similar to the Kyoto agreements: why should third world nations pay, why should nations with developing space industries pay the same as behemoths like NASA, etc.
Obviously the countries that caused the space garbage problem should pay the cleaning bill, but that line of reasoning didn't work in Kyoto either. Space was 'clean' 50 years ago.
On the other hand garbage collection is a very good excuse for weaponizing space, so I actually expect to see a garbage collection race develop if one country takes the initiative.
Wouldn't clusters of small satellites actually be larger than conventional satellites, contributing to the growing amount of orbital space debris?
I'd hate to be trapped here!
...with a miniature version no larger than a milk carton.
Great!
Err...
Exactly just how big is a milk carton? Is this Canadian milk or American?
(This is actually a serious question. A milk carton in Europe is only one liter sized, which is pretty danged small for a satellite!)
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Wouldn't such an initiative contribute to the amount of space junk up there? With more, smaller satellites, there is more chance of failures on each individual one, and less incentive to build in quality to stop these becoming another space hazard. The satellites also become harder to track, making collisions more likely... Has a study been done of the safety implications, here?
One system I have heard is 2 satelites with a cable between them, pulsing an electric current through the cable to induce a magnetic field. Can't remember if it is to either collect debris of deflect it down into the atmosphere. Quite effective its a couple of miles across.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
Big corporations don't spend mega-millions putting satellites into orbit without contingency plans. Sure, a debris hit may take out an entire satellite, but that risk is quite low. Component failures on the other hand are commonplace, so satellites that have to earn their keep have a lot of redundant functionality.
Consider the satellites used by US satellite TV providers Dish and Direct TV. Each of these -big- birds is launched with far more capacity (i.e. transponders) than the providers intend to use. Over the lifetime of the satellite, numerous failures occur. Failing transponders are put of service and replaced with idle ones. I used to wonder whether my TV service would be out-of-order for months if the particular satellite I'm locked on just died completely. I learned that the TV provider can even move satellites they own from one spot in geosynchronous orbit to another, temporarily restoring service until they can get another bird in the air. And they do use a lot of birds: I believe Echostar (Dish) is up to 10.
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NASA already has a couple nanosat programs that will fly in formation. They are sometimes refered to as constellation missions.
ST-5
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/st5/
THEMIS
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/themis/flash.html
These are the two that I know off the top of my head.
Space Daily reports that University of Toronto researchers are working on a project that could replace conventional satellites with a miniature version no larger than a milk carton
Silly hosers, everyone knows that Canadians get their milk from a bag not a carton, eh.
Skip forward to 2015: on the back of milk cartons are notices of missing milk carton sized satellites.
flying formations of small satellites that could eventually replace larger, more expensive satellites
I hate reading text like this in the context of university research projects. Every prof. looking for grant money seems quite willing to say 'Our new Fremulator design will revolutionize the VeebleFetzer industry and replace more expensive Framistan devices used today.' Considering the amount of additional hardware needed by a flock of microsatellites (propulsion, orientation, power collection, communications), you'll need some huge gains in other areas to really make this cheaper than one big integrated satellite. TFA says nothing to support the idea that these small birds really have practical commercial applications.
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IIRC the amount of debris and uncontrolled objects in LEO is already a bit of an issue.
Currently, if your multimilliondollar satellite dies, it's another piece of space junk.
One of these systems dies, it's 100+ pieces of space junk.
While I can see the value in the redundancy and survivability of such a system, the impact on the future LEO environment and, for that matter, ground based astronomy is probably not zero...
-Styopa
Just how many satellite launches do you think take place in one year? If you need 100 microsatellites sent to the same spot in orbit to duplicate the functionality of a single big satellite, you'll be launching most (if not all) of those birds on a single rocket.
I would predict that practical microsatellites will also be insanely expensive to design and launch (maybe not build).
As I suggested elsewhere, major catastrophes that completely take out a satellite already in orbit are rare enough already.
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oh right.
Please have your satellites parked on the low earth orbit curb on Thursdays.
Seriously, if these can maneuver it would seem like there would be some type of de-oribt protocol for these little guys at EOM. Otherwise, yeah, one of them is going to come through the space shuttle window.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The windshields of the future will have to be able to deflect these things like the gnats they'll become. Can you imagine how fun it would be navigate around this planet if it's surrounded by a fine dusting of millions and billions of these bugs?
Direct away from face when opening.
Each mini-satellite should come standard with a de-orbiting mechanism, like a small gas cannister or an azide pellet. When the lifespan is up, de-orbit the satellite to avoid adding to the space junk problem.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
People have been doing this for a long time. There are cluster launches of mini-satellites and specifications for engineering them.
That's where the Buggers have set up their listening post!
Don't Mind Me, I'm Just Nuts
I mean, who would pay for such a service?
2.5 thousand years ago, you might have said the same for urban-garbage collection:
I mean, who will pay ? Suppose the governing clan did ? Then the rest of the clans get a nice clean polis without contributing a single loaf of bread ?
I'm not trying to mock you, just give a reasonable counter-example by analogy: by which I mean that under a certain population density, there was no need for garbage-collectors. Once the technical capabilities and common need arose, so did the financial mechanisms.
I believe it may not be different for LEO g.c.
Working for necessity's mother.
Perhaps I could have my own, to beam my iTunes tracks where ever I happen to be!
There's absolutely no reason that you couldn't develope an ion drive that uses a few watts, for example. The thrust would be incredibly low even for ion drives, but you wouldn't need much for station keeping outside of LEO.
But imagine something like a big CD (or DVD). A thin reflective disk with a diameter of 2-3 metres. LCD shutters vary the albedo of parts of the surface so it can use light pressure to change orientation. It uses light pressure to navigate (slowly) through the solar system. You could stack 100 or more of them in a single launch.
Nice idea.
a beowulf cluster of milk cartons
First - lets get the terms right:
"small" satellite: typically les sthan about 1000 kg
"micro" satellite: typically less than 100 kg
"nano" satellite: less than 10 kg
"pico" satellite: less than 1 kg
CanX-2 is thus a nano satellite. Sorry to be anal retentive here, but these terms have meanings and emotional luggage associated with them for those who deal with them.
Despite the great potential of, and enthusiasm for, nano-sats, their main use at this time is as a training tool for students and as a low-cost test-bed for new technologies. This last bit is the main potential to me. Space has to get cheaper, and thus we have to move to small & micro sats. However, some things need large amounts of aperture (e.g. synthetic aperture radar), which tyically means a large satellite.
The desire is to move towards small and micro-satellite platforms for these uses, which means clusters, formation flying, and a whole lot of things that are currently expensive to develop and to expeirment on.
By working on technologies with nano-sats, one can perform a small-scale demonstration that a) allows one to get ones feet wet, and b) develops credibility when looking for larger amounts of money, and c) forces all parties to a small-budget, small-platform mindset, the type of mindset needed for moving "normal" satellite applications to micro-satellite platforms.
And, yes, there are many folks doing cubesats, and Surrey has indeed been in the game for a while, so perhaps the nano-sat paradigm is not entirely new. But the low cost of these platforms *allows* more people to get into the game, increases the rate of development and innovation, increases competition, and in the end should quicken the rate of progress in space development.
The CanX-2 mission is an excellent example of the possibilities of these things, and the pioneering spirit of the people working on them.
a space laser can probably be put into space and used to start pushing small stuff down into the atmosphere.
Yeah? Well, I just hope my hordes of undead ninja monkeys overtakes the launch pad before your mad plan for world domination and unecessary widespread devastation is in effect...
You can't take the sky from me...
Communications satellites are about one thing-- pushing as much data through with as little energy as possible. A *lot* of the mass of a satellite is in the power subsystem, and a lot of that won't scale down as well as it scales up.
Then there's the communications issue itself. If you have an array of satellites serving one area, you stand a greater chance of require *two* earth-satellite-earth hops, once through the satellite serving the source, and one for the destination. If you have a single satellite, you can reduce that to one hop (assuming the communications system is capable of point-to-point communications, and is not stuck with point-to-gateway communications).
I don't see pico sats affecting the communications industry right now-- perhaps in a couple of decades, but maybe not. Considering Shin satellite just launched the largest (most massive, with the most bandwidth) satellite ever, there still seems to be life left in the big boys.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
THere was a site with some presumably up-to-date information on numbers of "crap" floating in orbit. It even had a nifty little animation.
Anyone know what site I'm talking about? I can't find it.
I am all for less expensive satellites. The problem with this Idea is tht satellites so small are difficuylt to track, and we already have Huge Problems with all the debris that circles the earth, remaining of previous launches, discarded stages of rockets, et cetera, et cetera.
Those problems are that any of those pieces of debris may collide with satellites and spacecraft currently in use, damaging it. Actually, It is a big Concern for the International Space Station.
Please take a look at the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, and see for yoursefl why this seems like a bad Idea
http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/
Use of the shelf parts to make tham cheaper and lighter, and redundancy to make them last longer, but make them the same size as they are today!
Suerte a todos y feliz dia!
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
There was a Shuttle experiment on this about 10? years ago, the put a small payload on the end of a tether cable about 3 miles long and it followed the orbit of the Shuttle. It generated a LOT of electrical current. There was some thought to using the current generated as a power source for ISS. However, the lower orbit moves faster and places tension on the cable, so the stresses have to be carefully considered other wise the cable will snap. This would probably be a good use of the carbon nanotube fibers woven into a cable with a conductive outer surface.
Do we really need more LEO space junk? The future of manned space flight is doomed if mini-/micro-/nano- satellites become popular. Of course, that could justify a primary mission for the space elevator -- that of a "pool skimmer" to extract space junk. Imagine a beowolf cluster of space elevator "pool skimmers".
Since LEO space junk is travelling at 1800 miles per hour (or better), the "skimmers" will need to be made of depleted uranium armour plating. The impact with space junk would vaporize a good bit of that plating. Ionized depleted uranium trapped within the Van Allen belts should create quite a "light show", which would further screw up ground based telescopes.
Perhaps there really needs to be some kind of international treaty that limits these tiny satellites, as well as an OEM "deposit" to go into a recycling/clean-up fund.
There are a number of practical issues with teeny tiny satellites, but one of the biggies is power.
Realistically, the only power source for more than a few weeks is solar cells. Small satellites have small surface area, and so have a very imited power generation capability. Sunlight gives you about 1 kW per square meter in Earth orbit, but the very best solar cells are less than 25% efficient. Hence the problem.
...laura
Ahhhh !!! At least, now those will be prettier and smaller !
Imagine R2D2 as a milk carton flying thru space, sending information and landing on mars !
Held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
Isn't going to be awfully hard to see the pictures of lost kids from that far away?
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
"...no larger than a milk carton.... At only 3.5 kilograms..." Around here, a milk carton is usually 1 litre. What do they make these satellites of? Certainly not aluminum.
The author Paul Glister's blog @ Centauri Dreams keeps tabs on new propulsion technologies ++ space geek topics in general.
One technology, Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (M2P2) comes complete with a 7 meg flying coffee can flash demo.
Glister's book, Centauri Dreams, gives me some hope that science and discovery will drive NASA again.
Verizon: Latin for "poor rural service".
Once the obital paths of manned spacecraft become clogged by mini-satellites, we will just need to send up small manned fighters equipped with undepletable rocket launchers and they can save the fleet from the vast, onslaught of semi-intelligent space-baddies through endless stages to get the high score.
I'm reminded of the NIRTSATs (Need It Right This Second Satellites) which were introduced to Dale Brown's principal fictional universe in 'Sky Masters'... all they'd need to add is a means for quick aerial launch and there you go.
One more thing: read through the abovecited book and you'll see an interesting emergency use for the things...
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
In a word:
Planetes
(Tokyopop manga translation; official site of Bandai DVD; AnimeInfo.com review of Bandai DVD)
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
There isn't a whole lot of it actually. There is probably more tonnage in rocks floating around the planet than man-made debris. I don't know where that rumor started, all the man-made stuff is huge, huge empty tanks the ones you can see from the ground. All of them can be tracked with ground observation. Smaller stuff doesn't go that high.
But even paint flecks and screws/nuts could cause a lot of damage at the speeds they're going at. Cheaper mini satellites would probably be launched under less stringent safety checks, as the owners wouldn't be quite as concerned with losing a dozen hundred thousand dollar satellites, as opposed to a single hundred million dollar one.I'm not sure I'd want to spacewalk out there under those conditions, especially if tens of thousands of mini satellites (and their associated launch debris) are floating around too.
Given the very low power consumption for this machine it will likely be placed in a relatively low orbit to do it's atmospheric spectrometry work, which suggests it will fall back to earth much faster than most of the space junk in higher or geosynchronous orbit.
I believe it has something to do with Google Sitemaps.
Sites that have a sitemap show those links; those that don't, don't.
"However, the lower orbit moves faster and places tension on the cable, so the stresses have to be carefully considered other wise the cable will snap."
I seem to recall that it did snap at one point.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Even you can use a slingshot to put it on orbit!
http://www.michel.eti.br
I recall the mechanism to reel it in jammed due to the excess tension. They had to cut the cable or they let it all spool out, I'm not sure which one. The researchers were really bummed.
I think the main problem they had was electrical arcing (that may have caused the cable to break). The actual tension caused by the tidal effect aren't really that strong for that short of a cable.
within an hour of two...of WHAT ?
It goes even further back than that. Try the Tech Update section of Popular Mechanics from around 1990.
If you really want to rain on the article, the first satellites weren't much bigger than we're talking here. Sputnik 1 was a 23 inch sphere. Vanguard 1 (the US's 2nd satellite) was only 6 inches in diameter. Both were genuine scientific mission, providing some of the first data we got about atmospheric density, temperature, radiation, and micrometorites from a low earth orbit. In fact, the solar powered Vanguard provided a strong enough radio signal for tracking for 7 years, which helped to determine that the earth isn't quite round. In fact, the Vanguard 1 is actually still in orbit, currently the oldest artificial satellite, and should continue orbiting for almost 200 more years.
There was a Shuttle experiment on this about 10? years ago, the put a small payload on the end of a tether cable about 3 miles long and it followed the orbit of the Shuttle. It generated a LOT of electrical current.
But, there is no free lunch.
Current generated with a tether-based system comes at the expense of orbital velocity. If you extract electricity from a tether, you're getting that energy from the orgital inertia. Thus, your orbit dwindles if you "spend" this energy.
OTOH, if you pump electricity INTO the tether, say, with solar panels or nuclear power, you can ADD energy to your orbital velocity. Thus, you can do an incredible amount of orbital manipulation merely by suplying or burning electrical energy, with NO MOVING PARTS and NO FUEL PROPELLANT.
There was an article in (I believe) Popular Science about this in the last 6 months or so I found utterly fascinating. What this means for sky hooks/space elevators is anybody's guess.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
That might not be such a bad thing (loss of orbital momentum).
1. Deploy tether.
2. Generate electromagnetic field.
3. Gather space junk with said field.
4. Eventually orbit decays and craft deorbits, carrying gathered junk.
Of course, this would be useless for non-ferromagnetic material. Maybe an dispersed ionizing radiation source or something like that could be used to ionize non-metallic objects to draw them into the field.
Yeah I remember reading about this concept in Aviation week and space technology,,,, in ,,, 1991.
"I believe John Dvorak said it best, there are no new ideas, just old bad ones that won't go away" I think thats what he said!
Acutally because ion drives create so little thrust they're only useful *after* an object as reached escape velocity. Also considering the weight restrictions on such a small satellite engines would just increase the cost for very little gain. It's much more cost effective to launch the satellite all the way into a geo syncronis orbit.
I do like the whole idea of using more ion drives in space though. I think it would be nice to see some good engineering teams design small rocket payloads that attach to satellites and push them up higher into a more stable orbit. (Or at least preventing their decay for a couple of years). These would be great for the ISS too.