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CubeSats Spurring Satellite Revolution
kkleiner writes "Thanks to the miniaturization of electronics, small CubeSat satellites have quickly become the standard for orbital Earth monitoring. Their modular design and lower cost makes them accessible to many, from university researchers to backers of crowdfunding campaigns. This year, the number of CubeSats launched will at least double the number in orbit to date."
Just what we need, even more garbage floating around up there.
I'm going to invest in space junk collection. I expect to be a billionaire within 10 years.
The popularity of cubesats has caused a great increase in "space junk," which increases the threat to satellites which support critical infrastructure.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Looks like this format of satellite is finding a good few uses http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/06/startup-skybox/ aswell as smallish satellites from Guildford University UK http://www.surrey.ac.uk/ssc/activity/phd_projects/small_satellite_sar.htm.
They're not in the Nile, they're in low Earth orbit. Being in the Nile is a bad idea anyway - what if you catch schistosomiasis? That's no laughing matter.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's the Borg. For midgets.
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't know what schistosomiasis is, but I hadn't realized that I could contract a disease by remotely accessing a computer in a disease-ridden area. :P
Lets send barges of these to the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, etc. and kick start science again. Each university can have their own sat/lander and share data. Many eyes on the same target. Blind men and the elephant. Lets make science sexxxy again.
I really think we should, instead, be building a small number of super-satellites to stop the proliferation of space junk around the Earth. There could be other advantageous as well, such as shared energy and infrastructural components.
The risks of too many eggs in too few baskets would entail higher risks. I think making these manned space stations would, therefore make sense.
Matthew
I somehow managed to read that as 'ClueBats Spurring Satellite Revolution', which depending on the revolution could have been better news than the real article.
advanced 3d printers 30-50 years from now which churn out tiny sats which launch themselves and maintain themselves while in space, updating their programming while in space and with each new launch, creating decentralized and centralized networks like street gangs, sometimes working sometimes warring vs. the other with the idea of improvement in battle and intel harvesting.
larger mother ships with whale mouthed capture for grabbing a random set of sat-bots and gathering intelligence on their combined activities in their current partition of space
i envision a design mirrored from under our seas, each creature with its own purpose, strengths and weaknesses
It's hard to believe an article like this gets posted without somebody mentioning AMSAT. They've been building satellites since the 60's on a much larger scale. Help support the latest AMSAT model called the FOX-1.
I can lay claim to two of those sat's
I guess the 'Reporter' is just too stoned to know.
The entire article is fabrication; patently false.
A C-student in 10th grade effort.
If you are in (or willing to be in) south central USA next month, Citizens in Space is holding a 2 day "Space Hacker Workshop" July 20-21 http://www.citizensinspace.org/2013/06/citizen-science-and-space-exploration-in-the-lone-star-state/ The Space Hacker Workshop will provide hands-on exposure to a variety of microcontrollers, sensors, imaging systems, and other components. With these components, participants will learn how to design and build microgravity, fluid-physics, life-science, and engineering experiments. Each paid participant will receive a hardware package to take home after the workshop. The focus here is on SubOrbital flights - they are less expensive and CiS has booked 10 flights on the XCOR Lynx suborbital craft to carry 10 small sats and a citizen scientist payload specialist.
Interesting project for receiving satellite signals with inexpensive RTL SDR USB tuners and a Pi.
http://blog.carpcomm.com/
And, if so will the results be reliable?
Space is not a fun place to be if you are a highly sensitive semiconductor.
Lots of high energy particles whiss about all the time and can, and will, influence those semiconductors. Without special shielding or design you will get undesireable effects.
I know of a guy who made big money in bit coin hardware who is interested in developing a network of cube sats which create an encrypted, unregulated mesh network. The idea being that not only can people have a free as in beer network connection virtually anywhere in the world, but it will also be free from government/corporate spying and regulation. No one would own it and the funding would be crowd sourced.
It is not part of the internet but a separate network altogether. People will be responsible for creating the end nodes which host content using wireless up-links. The only cost to the end user would be the wireless adapter. There would be no geographic data transmitted or stored so knowing where the links are physically located on the ground is difficult. Since the cube sats are solar powered, there is no operating cost once they are deployed into orbit. It might not be blazing fast but it will offer people a way to electronically communicate in an anonymous fashion.
Also; queue the: "But the terrorists will use it to communicate", "Child porn distribution" and piracy nonsense.
I wonder how long it will be before these are launched without rockets by firing them into orbit directly from Earth in some way. Something like a rail gun with the satellite in a bullet shaped sabot-like shell with just a small retro rocket for orbital insertion.