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Satellites To Try Formation Flying on ISS

Posted by Zonk on Sat Apr 29, 2006 02:43 AM
from the fly-straight-fly-well dept.
Space Science
SoySauc writes "From a story on the New Scientist site: 'A soccer-ball-sized satellite will soon be floating aboard the International Space Station. Once joined by two others, it will help researchers test formation flying and autonomous rendezvous and docking maneuvers for future orbiting satellites.' NASA's DART mission was designed to do the same thing, but in 2005 shut itself down and bumped into the satellite it was only meant to approach."
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  • ... should never be mentioned together without also mentioning marine mammals.

    Btw, around here, soccer balls are known as mini death stars...

  • HAHAHA! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:57AM (#15226716)
    NASA's DART mission was designed to do the same thing, but in 2005 shut itself down and bumped into the satellite it was only meant to approach.

    HAHAHA Euro-fa... oh, uh. Right. NASA.

  • Other uses? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MichaelSmith (789609) on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:58AM (#15226721) Homepage

    By the look of it you could also use it for lightsabre practice. Indoors, at least.

  • The Real Purpose... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gerzel (240421) <gwsears.unity@ncsu@edu> on Saturday April 29 2006, @03:20AM (#15226775) Journal
    I wonder what else you could do with formation flying satalites?

    Oooh put a bunch of high power leds or lasers on those suckers and you could use them as pixels. Pop-ups IN SPAAACE!

  • Old news? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by anzev (894391)
    I'm not sure why this is news, I mean, seeing that a simillar robot was planned and partly developed in 2001 [nasa.gov].

    What I also don't understand is, why the heck the satellites use only ultrasound waves for navigation and positioning. Does anybody know, how the
    • I also found using ultrasonic sensors a little weird.
      Even if it's only while the satellite is inside the ISS, why not start using sensors that will work in space from the get-go?
      • not if the sensors are basically drop-in components. Then you'd just do the cheapest thing you can think of that lets you concentrate on the thing-you're-really-concerned-about.
        • Also,

          a) Flight dynamics are going to be different in air than in vacuum and
          b) Sonar is essentially worthless in air past a few feet.

          I feel like IR would have been a better choice here.
          • Ah, but how about using sonar as a drop-in replacement for radar? at slow speeds, and short sampling intervals, the atmosphere is close enough to vacuum for your control system to deal with. radar/sonar might be interesting to deal with, but even that ca

  • SPHERES (Worst acronym ever) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ookabooka (731013) on Saturday April 29 2006, @04:06AM (#15226891)
    From the article:

    The first SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-Orient Experimental Satellites)
    Ok. Yes it's cool sometimes to think of a clever name for something that just happens to spell out a nifty word, but this is crazy. Is "Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-Orient Experimental Satellites" really descriptive? Would you put that horrid name on a technical paper? Only GNU projects such as WINE (WINE is not an emulator) should use ridiculous acronyms.

  • ...docking maneuvers for future orbiting satellites.' NASA's DART mission was designed to do the same thing, but in 2005 shut itself down and bumped into the satellite it was only meant to approach."

    Maybe I can get some hot pick-up tips from this Nasa

  • Will there be some hype for the first eclipse between the ISS, the soccer-ball-sized satellite and the earth ? I think I won't go to work that day. I could not handle the fact that I missed that kind of eclipse with my pinhole blackbox.

    Any further proje

  • Russians do it better (Score:3, Informative)

    by Guillermito2 (911866) on Saturday April 29 2006, @06:47AM (#15227190) Homepage
    Curiously, and despite a lot of success in many domains, NASA never fully mastered automated orbital rendez-vous, which is almost routine for USSR and then Russia space agencies, since almost 30 years (and is very important for keeping the International Space Station fridges and tanks full). Here [space.com] for example we can read :

    "The Soviet Union performed the first automated rendezvous in 1967 and since then, Russia has used fully automated systems to dock Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to its space stations."
  • I'm wondering why they didn't use compressed oxygen instead of compressed carbon dioxide? If the choice was arbitrary, why put the extra strain on the ISS's life support systems by adding more CO2 to the environment? I'm guessing there's a good reason to

    • Re:Why CO2 instead of O2? (Score:5, Informative)

      by FooAtWFU (699187) on Saturday April 29 2006, @10:08AM (#15227890) Homepage
      Probably because carbon dioxide compresses very well (which is why you see it in soft drinks and compressed C02 cartridges in the terrestrial world). Also, oxygen is dangerously flammable.
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:Why CO2 instead of O2? (Score:2, Informative)

        by bjheu (854460)
        More accurately... They maintain a fairly delicate balance of O2 to Nitrogen, They've done that ever since the Apollo Flash Fire. Also they have scrubbers to remove CO2 therefore it really is the least intrusive gas to work with.

  • Unit systems (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bet this soccer ball sized satellite in a space station the size of a football field will generate a Library of Congress worth of information.
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