Fair enough. I think with the advent of the GStreamer being ported to the DaVinci platform and the fact that the development kit comes with MontaVista, makes it much more likely that an affordable, hackable device will be released. The device's price range is in the middle of the road as far as DSPs are concerned, so we should be able to see devices in the home theater enthusiast market with open source roots within the next few years.
It remains to be seen what effect this will have on the GStreamer community, as cheap DaVinci hardware may never find its way into hackers' hands.
What do you mean by cheap hardware? Do you mean fully designed, implemented and commercially available set top boxes, HUDs, etc. or the DaVinci DSPs themselves. The processor is tentatively priced in the $40-50 range for quantities of 1,000. For less than a few hundred bucks you should be able to design a prototype using said processor. If the DaVinci modified GStreamer source code is released (as it should according to the GPL) then it may not be all that expensive money wise for the dedicated hacker. This sounds like a great project to bring open-source hardware (i.e., opencores.org) and open-source software communities together. Of course, the time investment will be expensive, but it shouldn't be overly difficult to develop open source codecs such as OGG-Vorbis to plug in to GStreamer for the DaVinci hardware.
Even the evaluation modules and the development kit aren't too pricey for serious development. For under $15,000 you have everything needed for development. Plus, both versions of the development kit come with MontaVista Linux Professional Edition packaged with them. While that may be too expensive for the average hacker, it's not completely unfeasible to see a development based on the architecture pop up in the open community.
Having an open source starting point such as GStreamer available definitely boosts the feasibility of an open-source hardware and software Tivo-killer, DVR or other set-top box.
If you're talking about forwarding X over SSH, then yes you can. You could probably use Cygwin's X server to connect to the Linux X server via XDMCP also, but that would be less secure. Of course if it's just a home network, you should be okay though I wouldn't recommend running it without SSH.
I'm sure someone here will correct me if I'm wrong. As far as the relative crack-smokingnes of the idea, it's no farfetched than many of us geeks' ideas and personal setups. I often end-up in recursive ssh sessions without thinking about it (i.e., ssh into firewall, ssh from firewall to webserver, from webserver to main machine, back from main machine to webserver.).
On the one hand, shuttles flew forever shedding foam and it only became a real problem when a large enough piece tore off to actually damage the shuttle in flight significantly. Engineers accepted the risks with many reservations, because damage was never really that severe. Of course hindsight is 20-20 and this problem could have been rectified if the foam was located interior to the tank as opposed to externally. I think they were worried that if they tried that, there would be voids in the insulation that would allow heat to enter and cause problems, but that was a manufacturing issue which probably could have been resolved with a little ingenuity.
It's not as easy as it seems to insulate the shuttle from inside. Remember, the insulation is really just a tweaked version of that "Great Stuff" foam in a can you can pick up at any home improvement store. The stuff is a great insulator but it's not that resilient to a beating and I'm not sure it could stand the force of thousands of gallons per minute of fuel swirling across it. Sure they put the baffles near the opening inside the tank to cut down on the swirling effect, but it still gets pretty violent in there.Perhaps an insulated layer between two metal skins would work but then you're adding weight which is already at a premium.
The foam was never seen as a major problem until a shuttle didn't come home. Also probably less foam came off that ET than a lot of missions prior to that. The first ETs were notorious for their foam shedding when the foam was hand brushed on. Going to an automated spraying technique solved a lot of the problem as it avoided air pockets present in uneven applications. Still, there were a few places on the ET which still had/have the foam manually applied due to the curvature of certain areas. Lockheed Martin's Michoud Operation has done a lot to refine the process, but as long as there are manually applied sections of foam, there will be air pockets which explode during sudden temperature changes experienced during liftoff which cause parts of the foam to "pop" off.
I don't think that's the point, but you still have to take it part of the way.
By keeping the tank's metal stronger you don't need as much metal. The metal's density is much greater than that of the ice. Like the previous poster stated a pound saved on the tank almost directly relates to an extra pound of payload or less fuel required for said pool. That's part of the reason only the first shuttle's ET (external tank) was painted white. I don't remember the exact weight but they were using Titanium based paint that weighed into the thousands of pounds for something like eight coats.
Well it kind of worried me when the post stated that these sats were built from a kit, when in fact none of them were. I've been a reader of Slashdot for a few years now, but had to create an account for this post.
Yes, I realize that I just wasn't sure if that was too much detail for the topic. I'm currently working on Comm for CAPE1 on the second set of CubeSats. In a way, we needed the extra time for proper testing and such. However, there's been speculation that this launch will never leave the ground because of the extensive delays experienced so far (as you said 2 years).
It's kind of funny since we were hoping to see how well some of the hardware performed on the first launch of CubeSats. By now, it's too late to make any major design changes, so we'll just have to see how well the PICs hold up.
These birds are to commercial satellite construction as a balsa wood airplane is to Boeing.
Yet, Burt Rattan (of SpaceShipOne fame), who started in balsa wood airplane building/design and who hires mostly balsa wood airplane builders*, is building more innovative space vehicles than Boeing.
From a recent AMA (Academy Of Model Aeronautics) magazine interview.
As twostar stated, most of industry didn't originally see this form-factor as viable. Building a satellite in this small of a package is ridiculously challenging—it is actually easier to build a larger satellite, because there is more power, more physical space, etc. The reason many of these satellites are only diagnostic telemetry is the satellite itself is the payload. For instance, CAPE1 (riding on the next launch) is primarily focused on building the vehicle for a more sophisticated payload in CAPE2 (not yet in development). Even still we should have the ability to monitor buoys in the Gulf of Mexico monitoring coastal erosion by relaying the data to earth stations around the world. All this at a much cheaper rate than the current methods of using cellular technology or even renting on a commercial satellite.
As far as the piggyback delays are concerned this is extremely appropriate for the two DNEPR launches as this June launch was originally scheduled for October 2004, while the next one was originally October 2005.
I think you have to contact them directly. Pumpkin, Inc. I think the guy's name is Andrew but I don't remember for sure. I wasn't able to make the CubeSat workshop a few weeks ago, but he's usually there. The next one is in August, coinciding with SmallSat.
$20,000 is relatively cheap when you compare that to the $20,000 Rad-hard version of the RCA 1802 (think late 1970s) CPU that is being used in some of the latest AMSAT birds.
Besides, as someone mentioned below, none of the CubeSats on the two currently scheduled DNEPR launches are using the cubesat kits and therefore are likely cheaper. For instance, CAPE1 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette which I am currently working on only costs about $8000 in hardware costs (obviously total development costs are more expensive). The total cost per cube is about $40,000 for the two DNEPR launches which is significantly cheaper than a shuttle payload which was around $130,000/kg last time we checked.
As a side note, NASA was working on a cheaper US alternative for launching cubesats called the MPE, but in typical NASA fashion killed the project after spending millions and nearing completion.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you're lucky enough to get one that actually had the 9800XT chip whose features could be revealed with a simple nerve-wrecking BIOS update.
I think you meant two windows on one Vista...maybe
Fair enough. I think with the advent of the GStreamer being ported to the DaVinci platform and the fact that the development kit comes with MontaVista, makes it much more likely that an affordable, hackable device will be released. The device's price range is in the middle of the road as far as DSPs are concerned, so we should be able to see devices in the home theater enthusiast market with open source roots within the next few years.
What do you mean by cheap hardware? Do you mean fully designed, implemented and commercially available set top boxes, HUDs, etc. or the DaVinci DSPs themselves. The processor is tentatively priced in the $40-50 range for quantities of 1,000. For less than a few hundred bucks you should be able to design a prototype using said processor. If the DaVinci modified GStreamer source code is released (as it should according to the GPL) then it may not be all that expensive money wise for the dedicated hacker. This sounds like a great project to bring open-source hardware (i.e., opencores.org) and open-source software communities together. Of course, the time investment will be expensive, but it shouldn't be overly difficult to develop open source codecs such as OGG-Vorbis to plug in to GStreamer for the DaVinci hardware.
Even the evaluation modules and the development kit aren't too pricey for serious development. For under $15,000 you have everything needed for development. Plus, both versions of the development kit come with MontaVista Linux Professional Edition packaged with them. While that may be too expensive for the average hacker, it's not completely unfeasible to see a development based on the architecture pop up in the open community.
Having an open source starting point such as GStreamer available definitely boosts the feasibility of an open-source hardware and software Tivo-killer, DVR or other set-top box.
If you're talking about forwarding X over SSH, then yes you can. You could probably use Cygwin's X server to connect to the Linux X server via XDMCP also, but that would be less secure. Of course if it's just a home network, you should be okay though I wouldn't recommend running it without SSH.
I'm sure someone here will correct me if I'm wrong. As far as the relative crack-smokingnes of the idea, it's no farfetched than many of us geeks' ideas and personal setups. I often end-up in recursive ssh sessions without thinking about it (i.e., ssh into firewall, ssh from firewall to webserver, from webserver to main machine, back from main machine to webserver.).
I think you're right. All I could remember was that it was eight coats and that it was in the several hundreds of pounds. Thanks for the correction.
It's not as easy as it seems to insulate the shuttle from inside. Remember, the insulation is really just a tweaked version of that "Great Stuff" foam in a can you can pick up at any home improvement store. The stuff is a great insulator but it's not that resilient to a beating and I'm not sure it could stand the force of thousands of gallons per minute of fuel swirling across it. Sure they put the baffles near the opening inside the tank to cut down on the swirling effect, but it still gets pretty violent in there.Perhaps an insulated layer between two metal skins would work but then you're adding weight which is already at a premium.
The foam was never seen as a major problem until a shuttle didn't come home. Also probably less foam came off that ET than a lot of missions prior to that. The first ETs were notorious for their foam shedding when the foam was hand brushed on. Going to an automated spraying technique solved a lot of the problem as it avoided air pockets present in uneven applications. Still, there were a few places on the ET which still had/have the foam manually applied due to the curvature of certain areas. Lockheed Martin's Michoud Operation has done a lot to refine the process, but as long as there are manually applied sections of foam, there will be air pockets which explode during sudden temperature changes experienced during liftoff which cause parts of the foam to "pop" off.
I don't think that's the point, but you still have to take it part of the way.
By keeping the tank's metal stronger you don't need as much metal. The metal's density is much greater than that of the ice. Like the previous poster stated a pound saved on the tank almost directly relates to an extra pound of payload or less fuel required for said pool. That's part of the reason only the first shuttle's ET (external tank) was painted white. I don't remember the exact weight but they were using Titanium based paint that weighed into the thousands of pounds for something like eight coats.
Well it kind of worried me when the post stated that these sats were built from a kit, when in fact none of them were. I've been a reader of Slashdot for a few years now, but had to create an account for this post.
Yes, I realize that I just wasn't sure if that was too much detail for the topic. I'm currently working on Comm for CAPE1 on the second set of CubeSats. In a way, we needed the extra time for proper testing and such. However, there's been speculation that this launch will never leave the ground because of the extensive delays experienced so far (as you said 2 years).
It's kind of funny since we were hoping to see how well some of the hardware performed on the first launch of CubeSats. By now, it's too late to make any major design changes, so we'll just have to see how well the PICs hold up.
These birds are to commercial satellite construction as a balsa wood airplane is to Boeing.
Yet, Burt Rattan (of SpaceShipOne fame), who started in balsa wood airplane building/design and who hires mostly balsa wood airplane builders*, is building more innovative space vehicles than Boeing.
From a recent AMA (Academy Of Model Aeronautics) magazine interview.
As twostar stated, most of industry didn't originally see this form-factor as viable. Building a satellite in this small of a package is ridiculously challenging—it is actually easier to build a larger satellite, because there is more power, more physical space, etc. The reason many of these satellites are only diagnostic telemetry is the satellite itself is the payload. For instance, CAPE1 (riding on the next launch) is primarily focused on building the vehicle for a more sophisticated payload in CAPE2 (not yet in development). Even still we should have the ability to monitor buoys in the Gulf of Mexico monitoring coastal erosion by relaying the data to earth stations around the world. All this at a much cheaper rate than the current methods of using cellular technology or even renting on a commercial satellite.
Very good response.
As far as the piggyback delays are concerned this is extremely appropriate for the two DNEPR launches as this June launch was originally scheduled for October 2004, while the next one was originally October 2005.
I think you have to contact them directly. Pumpkin, Inc. I think the guy's name is Andrew but I don't remember for sure. I wasn't able to make the CubeSat workshop a few weeks ago, but he's usually there. The next one is in August, coinciding with SmallSat.
$20,000 is relatively cheap when you compare that to the $20,000 Rad-hard version of the RCA 1802 (think late 1970s) CPU that is being used in some of the latest AMSAT birds. Besides, as someone mentioned below, none of the CubeSats on the two currently scheduled DNEPR launches are using the cubesat kits and therefore are likely cheaper. For instance, CAPE1 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette which I am currently working on only costs about $8000 in hardware costs (obviously total development costs are more expensive). The total cost per cube is about $40,000 for the two DNEPR launches which is significantly cheaper than a shuttle payload which was around $130,000/kg last time we checked. As a side note, NASA was working on a cheaper US alternative for launching cubesats called the MPE, but in typical NASA fashion killed the project after spending millions and nearing completion.
Some universities are actually developing satellites with embedded linux systems, but I'm not sure about any of the ones on the current launch.