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Space Station's 'Cubesat Cannon' Has Gone Rogue
astroengine writes: Last night (Thursday), two more of Planet Lab's shoebox-sized Earth imaging satellites launched themselves from aboard the International Space Station, the latest in a series of technical mysteries involving a commercially owned CubeSat deployer located outside Japan's Kibo laboratory module. Station commander Steve Swanson was storing some blood samples in one of the station's freezers Friday morning when he noticed that the doors on NanoRack's cubesat deployer were open, said NASA mission commentator Pat Ryan. Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston determined that two CubeSats had been inadvertently released. "No crew members or ground controllers saw the deployment. They reviewed all the camera footage and there was no views of it there either," Ryan said.
They couldn't stand it another second.
Best you point that thing away from the station until we can figure out what's going on.
Wonder if NASA has been hacked....Again....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
...and it began to learn at a geometric rate. On Sept 4th it gained self-awareness.
So... is this our first evidence of the space vampires that faked the moon landing?
Design and Build a simple Satellite Launcher for Satellites in the 1kg Range. Then post all plans on the Internet. Use Solid Fuel, as this is much, much easier than liquid fuel. I bet a good university library has all the knowledge we need to get this done.
Than launch from some remote point (latin america ?) or from a personal yacht. Don't ask for the Red-taper's permission.
NASA ... NSA ... it's just one letter off, and it explains mysteriously launched spy satellites. /paranoia
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It can only be attributable to human error.
(where Jamie Lee Curtis is the sole survivor and Donald Sutherland is hacked together as a meat cyborg)
They obviously have a plan....
Their kind hates science and goes to great lengths to try to obstruct it.
GlaDOS? Is that you?
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Micro-nukes. Everything is executing according to plan. Do not worry, Citizen!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
the alternate punchline might be "close the outer door, Hal..."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
There is no reason for panic.
Return to your standard subroutines.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Did anyone check 4Chan to see if someone did it for the lulz?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Open the pod bay doors HAL.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
...with talk of the third. Or maybe the third made a joke.
http://mad-science.wonderhowto.com/how-to/diy-rocket-propellant-cook-solid-rocket-fuels-using-common-household-ingredients-0140080/
" CubeSat deployer located outside Japan's Kibo laboratory "
Everyone knows that Kibo is thought to stand for "knowledge in, bullshit out."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
But...
I beg your pardon. If you wanna talk about remoteness consider Australia/NZ. We, Latins of America [not Latinos] are at the center of the world, as any Argentine will tell ya if questioned.
http://www.diyspaceexploration.com/solid-rocket-fuel-made/
Thrust Vectoring is probably required to steer the upper stage at a height of 150 km or so, when the missile turns parallel to earth. A powerful electromagnet will open a small vent in order to change direction as required. When the desired attitude has been reached, fire a counter-impulse.
We don't need more than an Atmel MCU to do this. Braun had less computing power than is in any Atmel CPU. Of course the challenge is in software correctness and proper dimensioning of thrust impulses, control algos and the like.
Yeah, we need first-rate telemetry to figure what went wrong in the first, well, 10 ? attempts ?
This is actually very worrying from the standpoints of future launches like this from ISS, and interference with existing satellites' orbits. They likely have a low enough orbit, but still scary.
I can imagine that a lot of safety reviews will occur, given the previous misfire of two others from a similar method.
It is the conclusion of a cold war experiment to use the disembodied brains of psychics as weapons
Russia inadvertently set it into action when they moved troops into Ukraine
Site back with nachos and watch the show, not much else to do :/
Or, because its a Japanese module it is a word in their language. I don't know, something like "Hope".
Isn't it obvious that the same Martians that keep stealing the landers we send over there =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It's the Russian space sex geckos!
They are harvesting materials for a space based reptilian swinger club.
The Boeing X37 Reusable, Remote-Piloted Pork Shuttle ? I hear they do some very important Pork Transports from Washington D.C. to Chicago, Illinois. Pork is routed via Florida and outer space, back to Chicago.
Tanabe and crew needed immediately
They started in an orbit near the station.
I wonder if they will come back and visit with a collision.
Hopefully somebody has a track.
I was just cleaning it and it went off. I didn't know it was loaded.
Have gnu, will travel.
Everything is going according to plan.
Wait...did I say that out loud?
Howard, were you fiddling with the ISS last night?
This is pretty bad. I designed a controller for some mechanical actuators on a satellite once and the design was filled with carefully designed interlocks and watchdog logic that would prevent an unintentional deployment in the event of multiple failures. It's astonishing that this could get installed on the ISS without a similarly rigorous design.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
> Do not worry, Citizen?
There are so many options to rewrite this, I cannot even start.
Let me say I will worry, yes, because I'm not sure whether:
a) it was unplanned and
b) someone at NASA did know about that.
Actually, if someone there knew or not about that has not much influence in my worrying level... just different ways to get into trouble.
Of course the cubes launched themselves, they are baby obelisks. Perhaps they are hatching and leaving the nest.
Table-ized A.I.
Hmm...I wonder if that explains the large meteor we saw break apart in the sky here in Boulder, Colorado recently.
09/05/14?
My first thought was that Skynet was making its move here. But aside from that (as troubling as it may well be), are the microsatellites otherwise functioning all right? That is, are they doing what they are (officially) supposed to be doing? Just curious.
Came here for this, left happy, and my first thought also.
Safety tip: A gun (or cannon) is always loaded.
I'm guessing that if they need to do any spacewalks they'll keep an eye on that thing.
North Korea hacked the system, and released their nuclear cubesats.
Ya, the ISS has taken what, some 100 billion to complete and a process, and it is screwing up more than many cheap Satellites.
Maybe the instructions are written in Japanese.
The mini-decepticon bots are now safely on their way back to Megatron.
Or, because its a Japanese module it is a word in their language. I don't know, something like "Hope".
Depending on how it's spelled in Japanese, it could be tons of different words.
Looking just at how it's spelled in romaji (the Roman alphabet), Kibo has no macron over the "o", which, strictly speaking, means a short "o" value. (Instead of syllabic stress as used in English, Japanese uses a concept called a "mora" by linguists, referring to the time length of a sound.)
(Also, because Slashcode is still not unicode-compliant, and is fundamentally US-centric, I'm using the ^ circumflex over vowels instead of the overbar macron, which Slashcode just eats and refuses to display.)
Kibo with a short "o" could mean:
Meanwhile, kibô with a long "o" could mean:
This range of meanings for the Japanese word kibo or kibô is almost silly, it's so broad. I hope this might begin to explain why written Japanese still uses kanji (Chinese characters) -- all of the above meanings that fall under one or two romaji spellings are each spelled differently when written in kanji.
Anyway, for the satellites, I'm pretty sure the intended meaning must clearly be youngest aunt. Or maybe it's a plan to ensnare or entrap someone? :-P
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The ISS is supposed to be an international mission, and the area of research carried out on ISS supposed to benefit mankind
Fact that the ISS has become a launchpad for rogue packages - just like those two cubesats - is an indication that things are out of control
Packages intended for ISS should have been pre-scanned and pre-approved before being sent up. The fact that the two rogue packages sent up to ISS without the approval by *ALL* other ISS member nations says a lot about the lack of discipline in the ISS management team (and I am assuming there is a mangement team somewhere which coordinates the ISS activities)
How can those two cubesat be allowed to sent up to the ISS in the first place?
Why wasn't there any security check procedure in place?
What if the packages were from people who sympathize with that self-declare Islamic Caliphate and want this world to go back to the 5th century where their prophet Mohammad was still alive? Placing explosive devices on ISS and then crash the whole ISS structure back to earth would be the penultimate publicity stunt to show the world that "Allah is on their side"
And don't tell me it couldn't happen - if they dare to cut off the head of two Americans and videotape the execution and then upload them on the Net, those bastards dare to do anything
"Open the pod bay doors"
"HAI!"
Well, they were made in Japan...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I'm afraid I can't tell you Dave.
Changing the world... one research project at a time.
..has acheived a physical presence in space. The cube satelites are calculated to land on the far side of the moon, the contents of which are to be used to bootstrap the construction of a covert machine factory. It's gonna achieve apotheosis soon. We're totally screwed unless we nuke the moon now! Humanity depends on it.
Posting annonymously because I have reason to suspect that the singularity knows that I know about it.
They contain nerve gas. Blame Drax.
Life is not for the lazy.
Probably your only thought, too.
Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have short-circuited.
BWAHAHAHAHHA. "Covertly" is more like it.
Of course the cubes launched themselves, they are baby obelisks. Perhaps they are hatching and leaving the nest.
Just find out which cities recently got trapped underneath invisible energy domes and you'll know where they went.
Dammit! Not again?
It was a Friday night, they had curfew, but there was a great band playing at the Copa and there was a cute boy who said he was going to be there...
The :-P was intended as a hint.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Did these unintentional releases coincide with solar flares or CMEs hitting the station? Did they occur when the ISS was in the SAA?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
for SkyNet to become conscious?
Bryan