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European Students to Put Microsatellite Into Orbit

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Sep 22, 2005 01:54 AM
from the easy-school-project dept.
Space News
Astervitude writes "A Frankenstein's microsatellite made out of parts "donated" by university students across Europe will be launched on September 30 atop a Russian booster. Space.com reports that more than 400 students "spread across 23 universities and 12 countries" spent 18 months designing and building the SSETI Express. While its acronym sounds suspiciously similar to that of a project that seeks to uncover signs of intelligent life beyond Earth, the SSETI or Student Space Exploration Technology Initiative mission is actually part of an effort by the European Space Agency "to boost student interest in space technology and offer some hands-on experience." The satellite itself weighs a mere 136 pounds and is the "size of a small washing machine", as shown in this ESA photo. Visitors to the mission site may want to check out the contest page for ham radio operators to help collect data from the satellite."
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  • More information (Score:5, Informative)

    by Savantissimo (893682) * on Thursday September 22 2005, @01:56AM (#13619718) Journal
    From the SSETI Express [tuwien.ac.at] page:

    Payload systems:

    The Attitude Control and Determination System controls the attitude of the spacecraft using a pair of magnetorquers and a passive magnet and determines the attitude of the spacecraft using a magnetometer and a pair of sun-sensors.

    The camera uses CMOS technology and is capable of taking full colour pictures in the visual range at a ground resolution of about 100m per pixel, with an image size of 1280x1024 pixels. It will be used to take images of the Earth.

    The S-Band unit is the secondary communications system. It contains a microwave transmitter and TNC and is capable of 38400bps data downlink, or transponding audio from UHF via three patch antennas (S-Band ANT), acting as a voice repeater for radio amateurs.

    T-PODS - These three pods contain the three Cubesat passengers during the launch and coasting phases. After injection they will act as launcher tubes, ejecting the Cubesats from SSETI Express so that they can pursue their own missions.

    SSETI Express will carry three small nano-satellites into orbit as passengers. These will be ejected from SSETI Express shortly after the launch, and will then undergo their own, separate, missions.
    The three cubesats are:

    NCUBE-2 -Developed by the Andøya Rocket Range, Norway. This Cubesat will track boats around the Norwegian coastline (and one reindeer on land).
    [I, for one, welcome our new reindeer-tracking overlords!]

    UWE-1 - Developed by the University of Würzburg, Germany. This Cubesat will test new communications protocols.

    XI-V Developed by the University of Tokyo, Japan. This Cubesat will test commercial off-the-shelf technology and has a camera to take pictures of the Earth.

    SSETI Express has two 'radios' on-board.

    On UHF 437.250MHz there is a FM transceiver that can transmit and receive the AX25 packet telemetry and payload data at the data rate of 9k6bps. The transceiver produces approx 3 watts of RF output that feeds a canted 1/4 wave whip, which is mounted on the top plate. It incorporates a standard TNC7-Multi to convert the data to and from the OBC. It also has an audio and RSSI feed to the S-Band Tx. It was constructed by Holger Eckardt DF2FQ and is based upon his T7F UHF packet transceiver.

    Communications - On S-Band there is a transmitter on 2401.835MHz which can transmit packet data at a data rate of 38k4bps. It can also be configured to work in a voice transponder configuration. It produces approximately 2.5 watts of RF output which feed a three way splitter to the three patch antennas. The enclosure, power splitter and antennas were provided by the University of Wroclaw SSETI team and the electronics were produced by five members of AMSAT-UK. The unit comprises of a switch mode power supply, exciter board, amplifier board, controller board and a sensor board. The TNC is identical to the TNC7 Multi being used in the UHF transceiver except that it is set for a different baud rate.

    Typical Groundstation:

    To receive data from SSETI Express the requirements are similar to those for previous 9k6 Pacsats.

    To receive UHF telemetry, a steerable circularly polarised yagi with 12dBic gain with, preferably, a masthead preamplifier, should be satisfactory for reception of the data . The receiver must have an IF bandwidth of at least 20kHz and an audio output that is taken from the discriminator before any 'shaping'. This audio is then fed into a suitable KISS-enabled TNC which itself is connected to a PC normally via a serial port. To transmit to the satellite (when 'friendly telecommands' have been enabled) an RF output power of 10 watts on UHF should be sufficient.

    To receive S-Band data, the antenna gain will need to be more than 21dBic and in this case RHCP (right hand circular polarisation) is a must. Again a mast mounted preamplifier will be required. As the data rate is 38k4bps the IF bandwidth will need to be approx 80kHz together with a K
    • Funny that the OBDH (On-Board Data Handling System) Core for the ESEO is running Linux with 2.6.9 kernel. However all the decoding software I have found is all UI-View plugins for Windows. Is there (going to be) a Linux decoder out there? I can use Xastir to decode the AX.25 packets but I'd hate to hand decode the packets data.
  • First the Russians, and now a bunch of European college students? Clearly, there is something about communism that makes people want to launch tiny satellites. ;)
    • Well, it's not that we build small satelites, it's that Americans always need to build big things. Makes me think you're trying to compensate for something... ;-)

      • Re:I sense a connection... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2005, @09:56AM (#13621603)
        Well, it's not that we build small satelites, it's that Americans always need to build big things. Makes me think you're trying to compensate for something...

        Not at all, we have some really huge pricks in government.
        • And that comment is typically of your insecurity. :-) A. It is countering a post that, goddess forbid, suggests that the US is not best at everything. And B. it's completely factually wrong.

          Even one hundred years ago scientists were collaborating internationally, or at least thinking a long the same lines. An awful lot was driven by UK/US collaboration during WW2.

          If I look at my desk at the gadgets I would think that Northern Europe and Japan was fuelling the current technological age. On it there is a

        • Re:I sense a connection... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Pissing contest!

          Damn near every usefull technological advance in the last 100 years has come from the US.

          Last 100 years? You mean other than the first cloned mammal, microwave ovens, pennicillin, radar, television, the world wide web, mobile phones, xylitol, polyester, bakelite, modern rockets, the diesel engine, the electric car, aspirin, radio communication, the jacuzzi, velcro, cellophane, the helicopter, nuclear fission, relativity theory?

          In addition, let's not forget that many American inventions were

    • Re:I sense a connection... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vegard (11855) on Thursday September 22 2005, @03:01AM (#13619864)
      I would not call Europe communist in general. Granted, we *are* more to the left - way more - than the US. But the fundamental difference is that we *do* have ownership rights, can start private companies, and there is a free market.

      However, we do have more things that are deemed to be the responsibility of the society. Things like education. Things like health service. Things that everyone generally need.

      I think this is a good thing. It (tries to) give everyone equal opportunity, regardless if they come from a rich or a poor family. Of course, it's not absolute, there are still private health service, there's private schools. But the general idea is that there are some fundamental rights people have, that the government should provide.

      Other than that, I (as a european) does not feel particularily that I live in a communist country.

      But for a country where everything is so much skewed to the right as in US, I guess that everything else is communist...
      • But for a country where everything is so much skewed to the right as in US, I guess that everything else is communist...

        Please don't assume that all Americans are raving right wing nut cases. Nearly 50% of us aren't.

        • No, I wasn't really referring to that. I was referring to the fact that even the democrats are more to the right than the right-wing politicials here in social-democratic Norway, for example.

          Americans tend to refer to social-democracy as communism. While I was just stating that there are fundamental differences.

          What lies in social-democracy, is that a certain, pretty large, part of society is under government-control because it's deemed to be a fundamental right for people. Things like health care and educa
          • No, I wasn't really referring to that. I was referring to the fact that even the democrats are more to the right than the right-wing politicials here in social-democratic Norway, for example.

            Americans tend to refer to social-democracy as communism. While I was just stating that there are fundamental differences.

            This is a reflection of different historical development, I believe. It is more about words than political programs.

            Before WWII socialism and communism was considered evil by mainstream media everywh
    • I wouldn't get too paranoid. Due to budget constraints, they were only able to put the satellite into orbit around Europe, and not the entire Earth.
    • Funny but the CubeSat concept was by a Stanford professor and is coordinated by another California university, Cal Poly.

      It's just that the international schools don't have the ITAR restrictions so they can actually get their satellites launched.

      CubeSat has a bunch of American CubeSats ready to go, just waiting on the Russians to launch it now. http://www.cubesat.org/ [cubesat.org]

  • To boost interest? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lifterx (916661) on Thursday September 22 2005, @02:07AM (#13619746) Homepage
    Have kids grown out of the idea of becoming astronauts?

    I wish my school had a program like that, the closest we ever got to something like that was seeing who build the tallest free standing structure from a sheet of A4 Paper.
    • OK space sounds cool, but the average astronaught it seems to me is some coloniel in an air force - have to join the right army first and move upwards quickly.

      Moving along to funding the taxpayer in america it seems would prefer that his/her children learn how god created the earth in six days.

      To the staff of Nasa - it seems most of them where inspired by the moon landings, or 'rockets'. The book 'October Sky' by ex nasa employee Homer H Hickman sort of implies that.

      How about Burt Rutan and his spaceshi

    • Have kids grown out of the idea of becoming astronauts?

      Of course they have. It just isn't glamorous anymore. Manned space flight was done forty years ago. Modern day science fiction isn't about space flight but about computer networked big brother dystopias. Besides, modern media makes all scientists look nerdy and impopular. Why would a kid want to be an astronaut, of all professions?

  • Micro satellite and washing machine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jurt1235 (834677) on Thursday September 22 2005, @02:08AM (#13619747) Homepage
    I do not really consider a satellite the size of a washing machine micro. Maybe it should be called mini satellite, so we can make the step to micro a bit later, once it is for example big tower PC sized, so we don't have to step to nano satellites to fast to describe satellites the size of a basketball.

    Then again, following Jobs naming scheme: Nano follows on mini.

  • JP Aerospace's PongSat program (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FleaPlus (6935) on Thursday September 22 2005, @02:10AM (#13619754) Homepage Journal
    It's not quite orbit (yet), but JP Aerospace has been running a PongSat program [jpaerospace.com] for the past few years which does something similar. Some of their past missions have gone above 100,000 feet, and would make great science fair projects for students. The description from their page:

    A PongSat is an experiment that fits inside of a ping pong ball.

    These ping pong ball 'satellites' are flown to the edge of space by balloon or launched in sounding rockets. The PongSats are then returned to the student.

    It's an easy and inexpensive way to get students excited about science and engineering.

    There are endless possibilities for experiments that can fit inside a ping pong ball. PongSat's can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Experiments can be as simple as comparing how high a ball bounces before and after being exposed to vacuum. The PongSat can carry seeds to see if exposure to cosmic rays effect their growth. Several small inexpensive computers and other electronics can fit inside a PongSat. These can be used to create a wide range of experiments. Whether carrying a marshmallow to see if it puffs up in the vacuum of near space or an entire sophisticated satellite in miniature, PongSat can create motivation, drive
    and passion in the classroom.

    PongSats are flown at no cost to the student or school.

  • The Russian Boosters share some credit... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sattwic (545957) on Thursday September 22 2005, @02:18AM (#13619765) Homepage Journal
    launched on September 30 atop a Russian booster
    Launching on a Russian Rocket & Booster is so cheap that its one of the best kept secrets... Now that these students have found out that Launching isn't that hard compared to building a Satellite, Serious fun is about to begin...

    Let the mass migration of Hackers to hacking and building Satellites begin!

      • Re:A word about the Russian boosters (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Vo0k (760020) on Thursday September 22 2005, @02:55AM (#13619850) Journal
        Would you buy gasoline knowing it comes from oil rigs built by slaves of the Saddam's regime?
        Think this way: Now they are free, but poor. They get a less-than-fair (but always, some) share of the cash in form of pensions, social support etc. Now in the name of shunning the relics of the regime you can let them starve and let all their hard work go to waste, or get the sats to fly, give these people some well-deserved money and understand, the tech as such is not evil nor guilty, and now as the regime is gone, there's no real reason not to use it.
      • "Slaves" of a communist regime? I grew up in a communist country, and while there were many things horribly wrong with that, it could hardly be compared to slavery. As a matter of fact, it was sometimes pretty hard to even find somebody working. A popular saying was that "the main principle of communism is simple: people pretend to work and the state pretend to pay them for it".

        If you refer to GULAG and other prison camps, I highly doubt that any of these prisoners contributed in any way to the boosters t

  • Oh goody... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bad to the Ben (871357) on Thursday September 22 2005, @02:51AM (#13619845)
    I really hate to sound like a party pooper, but can we save space for those doing actual science? Space junk is prevalent enough, and competition for orbit space [esa.int] tight enough without adding more useless stuff to the mix. I mean, the most scientific items in the list of tasks are:
    -A camera with a 100m per pixel resolution (ridiculously low res, plenty of other picture taking sats available).
    -A Cubesat that will track boats around the Norwegian coastline, and one reindeer (just one reindeer? And can't we track boats with other means?)
    - A Cubesat testing new communications protocols (why can't this be done terrestrially or with equipment on the ISS?).
    - Another Cubesat that takes pictures and tests some gear (send it to the ISS).

    So, we've got 4 satellites up there, doing tasks which we can do via other means, wasting space. Why not send the equipment to the ISS? We did put it up there for a reason, didn't we?
    • can we save space

      Yes,,,,the ever extending never ending space is going to be filled up soon if we dont stop young knowledge seekers and FAST.

    • I bet you can't get anything sent to the ISS without paying some vast amount of money. Soaking up money seems to be the main reason that it's there.

      If someone just had a satellite and wanted it launched, they would go to the cheapest vendor. I bet the Russian launchers will quote a price that undercuts anyone else by a substantial margin.

      • I agree that sending something to the ISS via NASA would soak up large sums of money. But the Russians send flights to the ISS too, don't they? I mean, couldn't they just stuff this thing into one of those unmanned supply capsules they send up?

        Last I heard it was something like $20 mil to be sent up to the ISS via the Russian Space Agency. If it's that much for a person and their gear, surely it would be a lot cheaper to send an inanimate object?
    • Ummmm just how do you propose to get it to the ISS this decade? Payload mass on Soyuz is laughable and beyond spoken for. A washing machine sized payload, or even the smaller cube sats has NO chance. Shuttle isn't much better... starting with the simple fact it isn't flying. After that ISS payload space is also spoken for and very behind schedule so again getting these things up there would take a long time and a lot of money clearing NASA's manned certification issues for launching a payload with a crew.

      Fr
      • Then just don't send it. As I said in my post, none of it strikes me as particularly scientifically useful, so just leave whatever can't be sent on the ground. Or, get some of the instruments bolted on to someone else's satellite, or have the same satellite sent up the same way but make it do something useful! Sending up a washing machine sized hunk of metal that takes crappy pictures, tracks a reindeer and makes beeping noises is a waste of resources.
        • Tell the kids involved in making this happen that this thing is not useful. Usefulness is not just about the technical sophistication of a project. This is a hands on project of a nature that few people ever actually get to be a part of.

          Space junk is an issue a grant... but why not then just argue that there should be a de-orbit plan that will take it out of orbit. Not argue it shouldn't be up there period.
          • I know what you mean, I'd hate it if I was involved in the project and it got cancelled. But IMHO the line has to be drawn somewhere, and I'd drawn it here. I mean, how many other university satellites are going to be put up? We can't very well refuse them now that this is going.

            I wouldn't mind anywhere near as much if their project was doing something useful. It doesn't have to be development of a warp engine or anything. The reindeer and fishing boat thing could be a decent project if they expanded the sc
            • space junk my arse. i suppose you think some governing body should get to say who sends things into space, and i'd be right if i guessed it'd be american dominated, wouldn't i. named the last time anyone or anything was damaged by this rain of death of you seem to fear from space junk.
              • No, you wouldn't be right. Because I'M NOT AMERICAN (OMG!). I don't think there should be a governing body, I just think that people and space agencies together should decide to limit what goes up.

                And you know what, nobody has ever been killed by exploding the sun before, right? So why don't we just go and do that?

                Oh, and check out the nice 500 pound piece of junk in this article [space.com] that almost hit some guy's house in Texas, as an example of something that was almost damaged. In any case, I know it's unlikely
            • how many other university satellites are going to be put up?

              Uh, I hate to break it to you, but there are already a bunch up there. And more on the way. In the US alone, Stanford has launched a couple of satellites (Sapphire being the only one I can remember off the top of my head), Utah State & Weber State have launched one (NUsat), the Air Force Academy has put up several (FalconSat), and the University of Colorado has launched at least one (SNOE) - I've probably missed a bunch because I'm doing this

    • your just pissed you don't have the talent to do the same. besides the fact that the PROCESS of building and using the satellite is a great learning tool, by your logic we only need to ever build one of everything, since we already have ONE why build another. totally rediculous and i can't believe you got modded informative.
      • FFS, I know I don't have the talent to do it, and good on them if they have the knowledge to do so. I'm happy for them, really. But can't they send up something useful instead of wasting resources? My objection is not to sending up stuff, it's sending up stuff that does not do useful science, and just adds to an increasingly serious problem. Most of this project IMHO does not perform useful science (the reindeer thing could be useful if scaled up, but low res images of Earth that we already have?). If they'
  • My microsatellites are potatoes, launched from a highly effective PVC pipe, powered by environmentally friendly hair spray. :)
  • Is that deserving of a slashdot story?
    http://microsat.usc.edu/

  • Where are washing machines on the scale (Score:4, Interesting)

    by panurge (573432) on Thursday September 22 2005, @03:40AM (#13619947)
    How big is that in terms of the standard SI unit of size (VW Beetles)? How small is it in the standard SI unit of smallness (iPod nanos)? Is that US washing machines, in which case it's pretty big, or European washing machines in which case it could be almost any size?

    Actually, given the dimensions and capability of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik, it would be interesting to know how it compares. It would be amusing if the second space race - the race to be cheap, not to do things regardless of cost - was basically being led by a new generation of Sputniks on top of a new generation of Russian rockets.

  • A while ago a guy shipped himself in a box. Since this satellite is washing machine sized, I can imagine him fitting in this satellite. Maybe somebody can find his address, and ask if he is in for another, bit longer, but a lot faster trip.

  • Some previous references... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Saggi (462624) on Thursday September 22 2005, @04:07AM (#13620007) Homepage
    For reference:

    Previous story on SlashDot about micro satelites:

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/3 1/0451217&tid=160 [slashdot.org]

    ... and some sattelites lauched before (from russia):

    (30. June 2003)
    http://dtusat.dtu.dk/ [dtusat.dtu.dk]
    http://www.cubesat.auc.dk/ [cubesat.auc.dk]
    http://www.utias-sfl.net/nanosatellites/CanX1/CanX 1Index.html [utias-sfl.net]
  • I hope that isn't a fan for air cooling I am seeing in the bottom left corner of the thing in this photo [esa.int].
  • when they could be working on building the oribting tie-off platform for a space elevator?

  • Please change title (Score:3)

    by xs650 (741277) on Thursday September 22 2005, @09:08AM (#13621124)
    Please change title to "Russians put Europeon student's satellite in orbit."

    A bunch of students building a satellite is kinda neat, but far short of the neatness of actually putting it in orbit.
  • Even high schools have sent up mini satellites.
    • I wonder what kind of weird creatures would it breed when applied to a woman after some 5000 years of being exposed to space radiation.
      Actually, I wonder what kind of weird creatures would it breed when applied to a woman now and here, without being launched into orbit...

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