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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."
I believe that the orbit of these is so low that it degrades relatively quickly, and is out of the way of any real satellites.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Great, just what we need, even more ... Damnit. First post AC beat me to it! But I had time to skim TFA and didn't see a reference to de-orbiting them.
They're in low-earth orbit. It's not an issue, because they deorbit naturally.
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.
You do realize that the Earth gets hit every day by stuff that would destroy your car's paint job (and perhaps the garage it was in) - if there wasn't something in the way.
To reach Earth's surface, a vehicle would have to dissipate several tens of millions of joules of energy per kilogram of the vehicle. And it will, by heating up the atmosphere and vaporizing the vehicle. If the cubesat isn't designed for reentry, then most of the vehicle will probably be vaporized long before it reaches the Earth's surface. Even if somehow, it were made of unobtainium, that could withstand the heat of reentry intact, it'd still slow down to terminal velocity in the lower atmosphere. That might mess up someone's car, but it's not nuclear bomb-scale "duck and cover".
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.
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.