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Space It's funny. Laugh. Science

Using an Old Space-Suit as a Satellite 183

Posted by timothy from the out-of-fashion-anyhow dept.
Andrew-Unit writes "The ARRL has an interesting article about an amateur satellite project where some amateur radio electronics will be crammed into an old spacesuit and chucked out of the window of the International Space Station."
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Using an Old Space-Suit as a Satellite More

Using an Old Space-Suit as a Satellite

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  • Why do we need a spacesuit?? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jigyasubalak ( 308473 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:00AM (#12801152)
    It's only radio machinery.

    btw, is this FP?

  • ... er (Score:3, Funny)

    by mister_llah ( 891540 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:01AM (#12801155) Homepage Journal
    ... and so the 1st Inglewood satellite is launched...

  • Space Junk (Score:2, Insightful)

    by laursen ( 36210 )
    Do we really need more space junk orbiting Earth?

    • Re:Space Junk (Score:4, Informative)

      by heli0 ( 659560 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:06AM (#12801165)
      FTA:
      Once deployed, SuitSat is expected to orbit the planet for several weeks before burning up when it enters Earth's atmosphere.

      • Re:Space Junk (Score:4, Funny)

        by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:49AM (#12801306) Homepage
        Oh...polluting the atmosphere. That's MUCH better. What kinds of toxic substances make up a space suit and radio gear?

        • Re:Space Junk (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @08:03AM (#12801349) Journal
          Thousands of tons of crap enters the atmosphere every day. You could probably make a suit out of ,say, plutonium and still have negligible effect considering:

          One spacesuit+electronics - 50kg, tops.
          Atmosphere - 5,000,000,000,000,000,000kg (by most estimates).

          Even guesstimating that it might incinerate and cover an area 1/8th the size of the globe during re-entry, that's still pretty much SFA. Even with plutonium being the nasty thing that it is.

          Of course, the associated problems of dealing with 50kg of plutonium in one place at the same time is left as an exercise for the reader.
          • is not a word.

            Apart from that, yeah, a shoddy old spacesuit should do no difference - whereas it would do a difference if more people started taking the bus (or even better, the bike) instead the car to work.
          • Of course, the associated problems of dealing with 50kg of plutonium in one place at the same time is left as an exercise for the reader.

            That problem will "solve itself" in about one microsecond.

        • Re:Space Junk (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Iron Sun ( 227218 )

          Oh, please. Get a sense of proportion.

          Hey, I peed in the ocean the last time I went swimming. Call the EPA!

      • Wierd expectation. (Score:4, Informative)

        by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:32AM (#12801975) Homepage
        That would seem to indicate that if the ISS didnt make any prograde burns, it too would be entering the atmosphere in several weeks.

        I say wierd because I had presumed that ISS, like Mir would take a few months to reach an unrecoverable orbit which would lead to a re-entry.

        SO, they throw it downwards when they launch the suit? Well, Im no physicist - and this is only what I remember from my school days; if you were to throw something downwards with the maximum force available to a human from the ISS, then the object would return to you hours or days later because its angular velocity in relation to the orbit wouldnt have changed.

        In order to actually alter the continous orbit of the suit as you launch it, you would have to either throw the suit out ahead of the ISS (To make it go higher) or throw it backwards along the ISS orbit to make it go lower.

        However, I would rather suspect that an overhand throw of a spacesuit wouldnt make any siginificant difference in the time taken for re-entry to occur.

        Come to think of it. - Every force has an equal and opposite. which indicates that the ISS crew are going to have to fashion some sort of rocket to get the suit going. - A small compresses air cylinder would come to mind but would be hard to aim. You could of course blow it from the airlock but youd have to correct the ISS orbit using Progress afterwards.
        • That would seem to indicate that if the ISS didnt make any prograde burns, it too would be entering the atmosphere in several weeks.

          According to Wikipedia, "The station, on average, loses 100 meters of altitude per day." (and is periodically reorbitted).

          Of course the station has much higher mass compared to the suit. Since (for a given exposed surface area) the atmospheric drag is the same but the mass is less for the suit, the drag will decellerate the suit at a higher rate to the station. Obviously t
    • Once deployed, SuitSat is expected to orbit the planet for several weeks before burning up when it enters Earth's atmosphere.
    • In a word? Yes.

      How else are we going to have a cool cinematic view of the earth for post apocolyptic movies where the human race was almost entirely wiped out by an alien race... come on now!

  • Why a spacesuit? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mboverload ( 657893 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:02AM (#12801159) Journal
    What does a spacesuit have that a box of quarter inch steel plate doesn't? I bet the suit weighs alot more and I KNOW the electronics dont need a human atmosphere.

    • Re:Why a spacesuit? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:15AM (#12801199) Homepage Journal
      The spacesuit is already onboard the ISS and has been declared as surplus.

      quarter inch steel plate has the disadvantage of sitting on Earth, and would take up valuable space on a supply rocket.
      They might as well use the suit for something.

      • Re:Why a spacesuit? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:47AM (#12801299)
        Didn't the oxygen supply fail on the ISS? They might want to keep those "surplus" suits around.

      • Re:Why a spacesuit? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Eminence ( 225397 ) <{akbrandt} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:02AM (#12801731) Homepage
        The spacesuit is already onboard the ISS and has been declared as surplus.

        Yeah, so instead of coming up with an innovative way of delivering mass to orbit we achieve that through accounting. It's declared as surplus, written off, and then it appears it got there *for free* - Ta-Da!

        • Re:Why a spacesuit? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          The space suit was required at one point, so they paid to send it up. The requirement is complete, so they got what they paid for. Now, anything that they can do with it after that is "gravy*".

          It's not like they are going "Gee, if we send things to space and then call them surplus, they are free".

          *SpaceGravy on the ISS just *tastes* like an old space suit. It's not really made from one. We swear.
        • I like your accounting style. Did you work for Enron?

          Even worse, it is going to cost a lot of money to bring those stupid elementary school drawings up there. There is a large cost per kilogram of payload on every ship. Maybe they could save some money by printing it on surplus paper.

          What is the scientific merit here? Let's fund some scientific research, such as Voyager or Hubble. This is asinine. Maybe we ought to declare the whole ISS as "surplus" and sell our share to the Chinese. It's surplus,
  • In soviet russia... wait, are these Russian kids? That would explain everything. (nope, didn't RTFA, and neither did you.)

  • great (Score:1, Funny)

    by Emblem7 ( 884234 )
    now they can broadcast the War of the Worlds to the whole globe simultaneously and scare the sh*t out of everyone like they did in the 1930s!
    it really would be a transmission from outer space!

  • Obvious question (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:08AM (#12801173)
    Is that an antenna in your pocket...?

    • Re:Obvious question (Score:5, Funny)

      by matt me ( 850665 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @08:53AM (#12801640)
      no, i'm just deployed to see you.
    • OK, some bad one-liners...

      "In SPACE, nobody can hear that suit scream..."

      WHy SHOULDN't this be attempted? After all, I guess, ummm, it *suits* their purposes...

      Better not put a "pocket rocket" into that thing... it might blast off onto something...

      Or, even just a wee-wee bit of pocket pool, and that suit could go shooting off or shooting on some new uncharted course...

      Talk about USED clothing... Imagine if instead of it falling into and burning up in the atmosphere Uranus somehow enveloped that suit:

      Y

  • Wrong words (Score:5, Funny)

    by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:08AM (#12801174) Journal
    In space, one doesn't 'chuck' - one 'deploys' ie:

    Space: "Then we will deploy the space suit..."

    Earth: "Vern chucked his fast food container out the window of his car"

    Other permutations do not work ie:

    Officer: "What do you think you are doing?"

    Vern: "Hey officer, just deploying my garbage..."

    • Re:Wrong words (Score:5, Funny)

      by mister_llah ( 891540 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:12AM (#12801189) Homepage Journal
      Good point... I would also think chucking something out of a space station window is a terribly dumb idea, explosive decompression and all.

      The scenario would go something like this...

      Space Jim: "Hey its hot in here open a window!"
      Space Rob: "OH GOD MY LUNGS ARE INVERTING!"

      • Time to re-work that old Irish Submarine joke.

        How do you destroy a Russian space station?
        Knock on the window.

        • Indeed, I can see it now!

          YURI! DO NOT KNOCK ON ACK-NO! YOU ARE VERY IDIOT! AHH!

          (crack)

          (fwloomp sound of the entire contents of Mir being pushed out into space in a matter of a second)

      • I would also think chucking something out of a space station window is a terribly dumb idea, explosive decompression and all.

        Frankly, I think building a space station with windows that can be opened is a pretty dumb idea to begin with.

        (And, yes, I know it will actually be deployed on a spacewalk.)

      • LOL!

        Mind you, the English language can be a bit weird a t times - after all, if 'deploy' is to 'put out', then surely 'ploy' is to 'bring in' - likewise with 'destroy' (take apart) and 'stroy' (out together?) - so...

        "The old spacesuit was ployed some time ago on the station, but is now surplus to requirements and so will be deployed in space where it will eventually be destroyed reentering the Earth's atmosphere. This is no major loss as the suit was originally stroyed as a spare."
    • In space, no one can hear you chuck.
  • I find it amazing (and heartening) that in this world of money, and greed, that some people will build satellites, and get them launched into space, purely so Amateur Radio hams can bounce off them and talk all around the world. I've never done it myself, but I've watched someone going in on 2 metres, and hearing their output on 10. You only get a few minutes before the satellite disappears below the horizon again, but it's still cool.
    You could also listen to Mir on 143.625.
    • You made a funny! ... er, oh, you were serious... *backs away slowly*

      ===

      It is rather cool, all jokes aside, indeed, that I could pay my astronaut friends (if I ever find any) to throw my Great Space Toaster out the "window" (see also: airlock) so that I can remote control my orbital mind control lasers without that 2 seconds of lag.

      Muhahah! ... uhn, you should probably ignore that.

    • Re:Amateur radio is pretty interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Secrity ( 742221 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:54AM (#12801322)
      It is cool for hams to get satellites into earth orbit. Amateur Radio is perhaps one of the first examples Open Source or community development. From the very start; amateurs developed radio circuits, techniques, and standards that were openly published for anybody to use. Some of the right people understand the usefulness of Amateur Radio and the need for such projects.

      In most cases the people building ham satellites are hams, with some corporate support. The really cool part is that the various national space agencies allow / takes part in the deployment of the ham satellites.
    • A co-worker gave me a nice cross-yagi for 2m. When I have some time free on my hand I'll finish it with a 70cm one as well and will be ready for satellite hunting. I already have an FT-847 which was marketed as "Earth Station" and has quite usefull stuff for satellite comms.

      OTOH, I haven't touched the rig for a couple of months. Quite stupid really, at least the HF comms should be fine at this time of the year.

      • The 70cm downlink on AO-51 "Echo" is amazingly easy to recieve. I just picked up a used dual bander this weekend (my old UHF radios all stopped at 440 so they couldn't recieve the 435.300 downlink from AO-51) and made my first couple of sattelite contacts.

        All I was using was a $170 used radio, a $12 whip on my truck for the 2m uplink (running 10 watts) and a mini yagi I built out of some left over house wire and a scrap of PCV crimped to some spare coax following this guys plans 70cm cheapie antenna [aol.com]

        Tota
    • >You only get a few minutes before the satellite disappears below the horizon again, but it's still cool.
      You can also use a store-and-forward system (like SMTP) to send messages to a Digipeater on the ISS [navy.mil] or a ham satellite and have them picked up later by someone halfway around the world, without worrying about the view horizon. A friend of mine did this with a two-meter handitalkie and an antenna stuck on an ironing board.
    • In the past, hams have had some high earth orbiting birds up as well, which have allowed worldwide QSOs. Oscar 4, AO-10, AO-13, and AO-40 [amsat.org] were high earth orbiting satellites, capable of worldwide QSOs and extended operating windows up to 10 hours long or more. Sadly, none of these satellites is currently considered operational. Of these, AO-10 is brain dead and has no attitude control, but occasionally the solar panels and the antennas line up in a favorable orientation as it tumbles through space, and

  • Great!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by William Robinson ( 875390 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:10AM (#12801182)
    Aliens will be deterred thinking that they are cops orbitting around earth!!!
    • Maybe not aliens, but I can see some future space salvage operators... Hey what's that over there? It's not on the active sat list, let's grab ... HOLY CRAP! IT'S A GUY!!!

  • Amateur radio?? (Score:3, Informative)

    by madaxe42 ( 690151 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:14AM (#12801194) Homepage
    It seems the only 'amateur radio' equipment to be included is a single transmitter - everything else is going to be a bunch of CDs with school artwork on them - it's not clear whether the contents of the CDs are to be transmitted, or just, rather pointlessly, IMHO, held in orbit....

    • Re:Amateur radio?? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Adrilla ( 830520 ) * on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:33AM (#12801249) Homepage
      If I was one of those students, whether it's being transmitted or not, I'd think it's much more awesome that my art is orbiting space rather than just hanging on the class wall or in the hallways or even on the fridge (which they may also be). Can you say that your schoolwork got to hitch a ride on a spaceship then got to float in orbit in a spacesuit for a while? It's not necessarily important, but for a few kids, on a scale from 1 to Cool Shit: I'd say it ranks, Cool Shit.
      • PS: It could also spark some young interest in the space program, which isn't as popular as it once was with schoolkids


        (sorry for responding to my own post)
      • For a while... the orbit won't last forever. All this space station and shuttle crap is barely on the edge of the atmosphere... gravity out there is only about 10% less strong than it is here, if that gives you an idea how close they are.
        • From TFA:

          "Once deployed, SuitSat is expected to orbit the planet for several weeks before burning up when it enters Earth's atmosphere."

          From Wikipedia: ... "In the United States, persons who travel above an altitude of 50.0 miles (80.5 km) are designated as astronauts. ... The Karman line, at 100 km (62 mi), is also frequently used as the boundary between atmosphere and space."

          At an altitude of about 350 km, the ISS is in a stable orbit (barely) and is a bit further out than "the edge of the atmosphere"

      • Cool? Hardly. Pathetic is more like it. In the words of Ronald Coleman in "Champagne for Caesar," "If it is noteworthy and rewarding to know that 2 and 2 make 4 to the accompaniment of deafening applause and prizes, then 2 and 2 making 4 will become the top level of learning." If using a multi-billion dollar space program as an incinerator for your classwork is impressive, then you should get your money back on your education...

  • ok the spacesuit is feasible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nietsch ( 112711 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:14AM (#12801195) Homepage Journal
    But throwing it out of thewindow of the ISS? come on, this must be a joke. why would you want to do that? It costs (hundreds of) thousands of dollars to get a few kilo's in that orbit. If you are able to spend such an amount of money, surely you can make/buy something better than that? If this is real, then maybe the russians don't have such a crisis with paying for their progress supply ships after all. I propose reducing ESA's budget by the estimated worth of this frivolous spacesuit in orbit.

    On the other hand, if the spacesuit is already up there and needs to replaced anyhow, then I'd say go for it. It certenly tickles the imagination as the following discussions will prove..

  • helmet cam will be interesting. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:14AM (#12801196)
    Assuming it will be facing in the correct direction it should give the first point of view of a person stranded in space re-entering earth's atmosphere.

    "Here's you in space... here's you coming home..."

  • enclosing the guts of the satellite -- i.e. the technology -- in a shell such as this seems a pretty good idea. since the space-suit isn't brittle, it should be less susceptible to shattering by micro-meteorites and space-debris.

    i guess power supply would be a problem though?
  • ..after traveling for thousands of years, an alien crafts effort of final contact is foiled after crashing into, what appears to be- a satellite wearing spacesuite, just beyond the earths atmosphere..

  • The ISS has a window?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mwongozi ( 176765 ) <slashthree.davidglover@org> on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:42AM (#12801282) Homepage
    In case it gets hot, perhaps?
  • .. future-Gryllidae-overlords-of-the-earth archeologist clique, collecting space debris for detailed analysis, find an old 'human skin vessel' floating out there, ever-watching, ever alert ..

    its enough to make you want to chitillate ones carapace, ew.

  • There goes my "lucky" shirt! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @07:48AM (#12801301)
    I hope my wife doesn't read this story. Otherwise the next time she goes to throw out all my "lucky" (read:Confortable) shirts she will just tell me "I am redploying them"
  • They had better remember to wind the window back up when they're done.

  • ISS has a history of supporting Amateur Radio (Score:5, Informative)

    by VE3ECM ( 818278 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @08:00AM (#12801339)
    Not only have there been quite a few astro/cosmonauts that are licensed amateurs, but they maintain a functional Amateur Radio station on the ISS.

    Contacts made from/to the ISS [ariss.net]

    Official NASA ISS Amateur Radio Page [nasa.gov]

    ARRL ISS Page [arrl.org]

    It's incredibly easy to talk to the ISS from the earth... you don't need a particularily high-powered radio to do it. In fact, the radio on the ISS is a plain jane, Kenwood dual-band radio.

  • The International Space Station is leaking oxygen after being hit by what has officially been described as 'space junk' but many believe to be an object malicously planted in the path of the ISS' orbit by filthy terrorists...

    Once again, with the Space Shuttles still not running, the lives of our brave and noble astronauts will be saved by another standard Soyuz supply mission.

  • He's heading for that small satellite. (Score:5, Funny)

    by d9000 ( 882617 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @08:10AM (#12801386)

    "I think I can get him before he gets there... he's almost in range."

    "That's no satellite! It's a space suit!"

    "It's too small to be a space suit."

    "I have a very bad feeling about this."

  • There is something morbidly funny about seeing a human silhouette floating in orbit.

  • windows? (Score:3, Funny)

    by taybin ( 622573 ) <taybin@taybi n . c om> on Monday June 13, 2005 @08:34AM (#12801510) Homepage
    Why would the ISS have windows that open??

  • Best. Idea. Ever. (Score:3)

    by GuyZero ( 303599 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @08:59AM (#12801699)
    I plan on doing the same thing with some old gym shorts and my car next week.

  • Imagine that drifting up to the window... (Score:4, Funny)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @09:17AM (#12801834) Homepage
    ...of the space shuttle. AAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!!!! AAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!!!! Oh, wait, it's just SuitSat.

    Be a great joke to play on the new guys. The first ghost story in space. And they say old Bob still orbits around these parts, forever relaying ham radio signals.

  • IIRC, the soviets hand launched a few satellites known as "Iskra" from the Salyut-7 manned station. They were relatively short lived, but gave 2-way communications to properly equipped stations.

    http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/HandLaunchedS ats.html [spacetoday.org]A quick synopsis of hand-launched sats

  • Dead body (Score:1, Funny)

    by parasonic ( 699907 )
    Well, at least the spacesuit won't be crammed with a dead Frank Poole.
  • Neat, novel satellite hardware is chucked out of the space station.

    On the other side of the Earth on the orbit path, the twain shall meet again and the novel invention rams a solar panel, causing ISS to hurtle down to Earth.

  • Pictures? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SnarfQuest ( 469614 ) on Monday June 13, 2005 @10:46AM (#12802563)
    I like the part about the schools being allowed to supply one 8-1/2 by 11 inch picture, make absolutely sure it is in jpeg format because they burn up better, to be included on a CD, in order to be burned up with the suit.

    Teacher: Mary, your artwork is so good, were going to burn it. And it's not going to be a normal "throw it in the incinerator" type of burn; we are going to burn it in the most incredible heat possible, and spread the ashes all over the planet so there is no possibility of recovery.

    Mary: ....
  • Ok, so given that it costs something like millions of dollars to launch even a small few pound payload, why the hell are they worried about the cost of making a real satellite? My understanding is that you can make something space hardened fairly easily (which is the only point of the suit, AFAIK) and that the vast majority of the cost of a simple satellite comes from the launch.

    Plus, having a human shaped thing floating around in orbit gives me the creeps. Can you imagine what that looks like to other lif
  • I'm truly sorry. I thought he was the satellite. So how do you plan to retrieve him?

  • Ok, I can see some interest in some amateur experiments with radio in this thing, but what's the point of sticking a CD full of student artwork in it just to have it get fried after a couple of weeks? They could throw some artwork into an incinerator on earth and get as much out of it. If that's all they can think to do with this thing, it's a particularly powerful indicator of how bad science education has gotten...

    If they want some kids to express themselves, have them put the artwork up on the web o

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