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."

Comments

In what way is this new?

[Pipedings]

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).

Re:In what way is this new?

[Usaflt2003]

The reason that we don't have smaller satellites up there is because many of the miniaturized electronic components that are availble for use down here are not robust enough to survive the rigors of launch and space flight. We are just now starting to really experiment with micro, pico and nano sats as the first generations of mini-tech designed to survive launch and orbit are becoming available.

The advantage of constellations of small satellites are numerous. Take weather observation for example. A single satellite is only able to observe 500 miles of a given weather event... for kicks lets say a hurricane. As it zooms in to get more detailed data X decreases exponentially. Well now we have say 5 smaller satellites flying in a longitudenal line and each has the ability to observe 375 miles of that same weather event with a 25 mile over lap at the edge of each observation circle. You now have an observation line 1725 miles long and the ability to zoom in selectively to collect information while still keeping a bigger picture view on the majority of the storm.

This of course does not mean that larger satellites don't have their place but in the space business smaller is also far cheaper. at a launch cost of approx $10K (or atleast thats what its coming to for my missions lately) if I can create a 100 lb satellite that can do the same mission of a 500 lb satellite I will take it. First it means I can ride share and that means someone else is helping with launch costs. Secondly given that there is a ride share that means more payloads are flying which eventually could lead to economies of scale type cost reductions both in satellite and launch vehicle manufacturing/launch services. Third with the more payloads that fly it means that we may actually start making ngrand new discoveries about space again, improve earth observation capability (for things like weather, put away your tinfoil hats), and finally start putting some slack into global satellite communications capability... most people don't realize how tight that pipeline is, but thats a topic for another post.

Two Danish micro satellites.

[Saggi]

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/

Re:Great but....

[eddy]

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)

escape velocity for microsatellites with ion drive

[zardo]

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.

Mars

[WindBourne]

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.

Satellite arrays

[FirienFirien]

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?

could you imagine...

[Deitheres]

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...

Re:And space garbage collectors open their busines

[Zeussy]

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.