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Mini Satellites Could Revolutionize Space Industry
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 31, 2005 03:33 AM
from the smaller-cheaper-space-junk dept.
from the smaller-cheaper-space-junk dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Space Daily reports that University of Toronto researchers are working on a project that could replace conventional satellites with a miniature version no larger than a milk carton. From the article: "At only 3.5 kilograms, the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) will test small, low-power devices that could lay the groundwork for flying formations of small satellites that could eventually replace larger, more expensive satellites."
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NASA To Develop Small Satellites 85 comments
coondoggie brings news that NASA has announced it will team with Machine-to-Machine Intelligence Corp. to produce small satellites, called 'nanosats,' weighing between 11 and 110 pounds. The satellites will work together in 'constellations' and facilitate networking in space. According to NASA's press release, it will 'develop a fifth generation telecommunications and networking system for Internet protocol-based and related services.' We've discussed miniature satellites in the past.
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For some reason all that comes to mind (Score:5, Funny)
... I think this is a sign I should be sleeping at 3:35 AM and not reading slashdot
Re:For some reason all that comes to mind (Score:5, Informative)
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Wow - miniature satallites (Score:5, Funny)
And now... (Score:3, Funny)
Thinking of the Muppets... (Score:5, Funny)
"Clusters in Space-ace-ace-ace."
In what way is this new? (Score:4, Interesting)
I fail to see why formations of smaller satellites should be a new development. If smaller types could accomplish the mission of bigger ones, the big ones wouldn't be up there (carrying large antennae, big lenses or whatever).
Hmmm smaller satallites (Score:3, Insightful)
Two Danish micro satellites. (Score:5, Interesting)
They were send up 30. June 2003, along with some commercial satellites and were created as student experiments from "Danmarks Tekniske Universitet" (DTU) and "Aalborg Universitet" (AAU). The goal was to see if you could bring them up there and communicate with them.
You can read more about the two satellites here:
http://dtusat.dtu.dk/ [dtusat.dtu.dk]
http://www.cubesat.auc.dk/ [cubesat.auc.dk]
And space garbage collectors open their business.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And space garbage collectors open their busines (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nasa engineers during lunch just after a launch (Score:3, Funny)
escape velocity for microsatellites with ion drive (Score:5, Interesting)
Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mars (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly eough, we could send these to the moon first and use these to set up the mesh network for working on the back side of the moon. In addition,
Satellite arrays (Score:5, Interesting)
There's similar projects widely spread around the globe; by combining information from a wide array of detectors, you can eliminate significant swathes of atmospheric noise, and since you know which direction the arrays are pointing in, you can correct for depth errors electronically (ie if one detector is 90 round the earth from another, any signal that comes from that sector of sky will reach the two detectors at slightly different times (unless they happen to be at 45 either side of the signal) and the two signals can be shifted correspondingly to align the actual signal, whether it be emission from a star or the next wow signal.)
On the other hand, a satellite array would probably be non-directional - can't figure off the top of my head how a signal would currently directed from a satellite, since they'd be serving multiple devices at once.... hmm. Seems like with an array you'd have better scope for having a bigger aperture; though you'd get more chance for errors if the signal was coming from a direction further away from the vertical. Comments?
Re:Satellite arrays (Score:3, Interesting)
could you imagine... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, had to be said
Seriously though... this would provide for something that is pretty lacking in current satellites: successful redundancy.
If a satellite gets hit with debris or something, it's normally down for the count. You get a cluster of these mini satellites... all sharing the workload... if one gets hit, the rest just pick up the slack.
Plus this could open up all sorts of possibilities for amateur space exploration...
Picosats (Score:3, Interesting)
Mini satellites revolutionary? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't know about these, but Sweden is doing research on micro-satellites and those can be deployed within an hour or two using a normal jet-fighter (Viggen/JAS)
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Re:Great but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
IF, on the other hand, you spend an approximately equal amount of money to build a swarm of tiny, cheap, simple birds, that together can do the same job as a big satellite (and have some redundency amongst themselves), you can afford to lose a few from time to time. There are less catastrophes that will deny your orbital presence entirely.
Plus, if your birds are the size of milk cartons (with a mass to go with it), your launch options are a LOT more flexible: instead of commissioning your own launch, you can piggyback on other launches at a huge discount.
Like with clusters of servers, disks, or whatever, flexibility opens up tons of opportunities to save money and be more robust.
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Re:I don't get it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep in mind this is a university project, and probably not people that would want/need to send 50 up.
A mighty cool hack
MOD PARENT DOWN for being a retard (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Full article text - Real versions (Score:5, Informative)
The CanX-2 Mission
The CanX-2 Mission is the second "NanoSatellite" Mission at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, Space Flight Laboratory (UTIAS/SFL). The Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiments (CanX) push the envelope of what can be achieved in space with small, low-power devices. With a focus on aggressive experimentation, CanX missions use the latest commercial technologies and manage moderate risks in exchange for low cost and quick turnaround. UTIAS/SFL is part of an international community of nanosatellite developers that share common launches to reduce costs.
At 3.5 kilograms and the size of a carton of milk, CanX-2 will be a pathfinder mission in 2006 to evaluate novel technologies that will be used on the CanX-4 / CanX-5 dual satellite mission in 2008 to demonstrate controlled formation flying in space. Formation flying technology will open the door to larger missions for highresolution Earth observation and interferometric imaging that can also be used for space astronomy. The technologies to be tested include a novel propulsion system, custom radios, innovative attitude sensors and actuators, and a commercial GPS receiver.
In addition to evaluating these miniature technologies, the satellite will also perform experiments for other university researchers across Canada. These include a GPS radio occultation experiment to characterize the upper atmosphere (Calgary), an atmospheric spectrometer to measure greenhouse gases (York), a network communications experiment (Carleton), and a space materials experiments (Toronto).
Second story from : http://www.spacedaily.com/news/microsat-05j.html [spacedaily.com]
Canadian Researchers To Showcase CanX-2 Nanosat August 31
Toronto ON (SPX) Aug 30, 2005 University of Toronto researchers will demonstrate how a satellite the size of a milk carton that may revolutionize the space industry on Wednesday, Aug. 31, at 10 a.m. at University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) Lecture Hall, 4925 Dufferin Street.
At only 3.5 kilograms, the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) will test small, low-power devices that could lay the groundwork for flying formations of small satellites that could eventually replace larger, more expensive satellites.
At the demonstration, researchers will control the CanX-2 nanosatellite through a wireless radio link and download real-time images and telemetry from on-board equipment including a GPS-based positioning system, a miniature propulsion system and tiny devices used for sensing and controlling the satellite's orientation in space.
"The point of this mission is two-fold," says Professor Robert Zee, managing director of the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory (SFL).
"The first is to provide complete development cycle training for students through a real space mission that has to be completed in two years. The second is to launch a tiny research platform into space to test innovative, revolutionary technologies in a rapid, risk-taking manner and also to perform important science missions that are now benefiting from the availability of smaller and smaller instrumentation."
CanX-2 is the second nanosatellite mission at UTIAS/SFL. CanX-1, Canada's first nanosatellite and one of the smallest satellites ever built, was launched with the MOST microsatellite in 2003 by Eurockot Launch Services from Plesetsk, Russia.
Sidebar to Second story
In collaboration with researchers from across Canada, the primary mission of CanX-2 will be a GPS radio occultation experiment to determine vertical profiles of atmospheric properties. It will also perform a number of additional experiments including mobile ad-hoc networking, autonomous control, advanced surface mate
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Re:Surrey Satellite Technology Limited.. (Score:4, Informative)
They launched the 6kg SNAP a few years back, I was one of the early designers of that little guy. They actually put 3 momentum wheels for tri-axis attitude control on it eventually.
http://sstl.co.uk// [sstl.co.uk]
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