Comments on: Kickstart your way to an experiment on a satellite!

By: Projects in the News | Alles Over Crowd Funding

Projects in the News | Alles Over Crowd Funding — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:03:38 +0000

[...] Plait of Discover Magazine posted about the “ArduSat” project to create an arduino satellite and open platform for the [...]

By: Andy Clayman

Andy Clayman — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:11:54 +0000

Planetary Resources is also looking to do a kickstarter for a satellite.

http://www.planetaryresources.com/2012/06/back-us-on-kickstarter/

By: vince charles

vince charles — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 01:30:22 +0000

Go through some of the stock parts catalogs, from the several, competing CubeSat vendors: CubeSatKit, Pumpkin, the Brit one, the couple of Euro ones, etc. All the basic details and specs are actually known. Though of course, the whole point is to try something unknown, with your own experimental gear. Still, not having to reinvent the wheel (structure/power/transmitter/etc.) means you can actually concentrate on your experiment.

“I’m familiar with SSTL – and I’m not impressed by their space junk. I’m still wondering why EADS bought ‘em.”

That’s the beauty of a published, thriving platform. Not only does it destroy the notion that you’re the smartest person/group in the field… it actually feeds off the destruction, and thus invites new experimenters and their ideas. If SSTL’s smartphone-based mission fails, then perhaps NASA Ames’ smartphone mission will manage to figure it out… or some university team, or even a bunch of well-off techies in their free time. SSTL did not drop the baton, because it can’t: this race has no baton. Or, a thousand batons, however you want to look at it.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:57:23 +0000

Jeez, I never thought that the basic design specs of micro-satellites would be cause for such contentious debate Especially when so few details are actually known. Of course, lack of information never stopped humans from arguing before

By: vince charles

vince charles — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:28:03 +0000

10. Thameron Said:
June 16th, 2012 at 5:48 am

“Perhaps this article needs to be juxtaposed with the frequent articles about accumulating space junk in orbit causing problems for the space station and other satellites. So we should really make a decision here. Should every high school kid get to do his science project in space or should we keep LEO clean of such things?”

You’re really not in this business, I see. Densities and mass efficiencies work out favorably compared to spacecraft in general, so CubeSats are already ahead of the field at launch time. In terms of active mitigation, this segment is, also, leading the industry.

By: vince charles

vince charles — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:23:04 +0000

11. MadScientist Said:
June 16th, 2012 at 4:51 pm

MadScientist, that’s what you drew from my post? Recalibrate your sarcasm sensor… and reread your own post, to which I was replying and quoting.

Back on topic: Joseph G is taking a guess, and he got it better than you did. Not only are experimenters’ chips faster and lower-wattage than mil-spec, but they will keep improving faster, sooner.

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 09:46:37 +0000

@11 Madscientist: Thanks for the link, but Munin had fewer instruments and far more solar panels. The idea for this cube sounds far too utopic for me. Even if instruments were switched on and off, that’s an awful lot of instruments competing for observing time.

The Munin sat was launched in 2000. My bet is that this is possible because electronics have come a long way in 12 years. The boom in smartphones, tablets, netbooks etc have led to a lot of progress in the design of low-power processors and electronics.

By: Lukas

Lukas — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:01:49 +0000

@Mike: that was my post above. Maybe it’s easier to get excited about something where you can actually follow the steps they are making fairly closely (like with spacex). With the Chinese program it’s a lot harder to find some of the details of what’s actually going on. I only stumbled across this on the day of the launch and then managed to miss the actual launch.

Still, now after the launch I would have expected at least a casual mention here instead of/before some post on snow crop circles..

By: Mike Saunders

Mike Saunders — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 03:28:36 +0000

How come nobody is writing about the launch of the Chinese ‘nauts to their space station? Other people ask this too above me. Curiously, the autonomous space plane flown for many days past mission end date lands at the same time as the Chinese launch. Yet no space geeks talk about either of these events. Why? I’m not claiming conspiracy, but its weird that so much is going on and no one seems to care…

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 22:51:08 +0000

@Wayne: Thanks for the link, but Munin had fewer instruments and far more solar panels. The idea for this cube sounds far too utopic for me. Even if instruments were switched on and off, that’s an awful lot of instruments competing for observing time.

@vince charles: Why such a hatred of Boeing and the like? I’m familiar with SSTL – and I’m not impressed by their space junk. I’m still wondering why EADS bought ‘em.