Orbit Your Own Satellite For $8,000 208
RobGoldsmith sends word of Interorbital's TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit, which allows anyone to send a half-pound payload to low-earth orbit for $8,000. Your satellite will fly to orbit from Tonga atop an Interorbital Systems NEPTUNE 30 rocket along with 31 other TubeSats. It will function for several weeks, then its orbit will decay and it will burn up in the atmosphere. Interorbital plans to send up a load of 32 TubeSats every month. If you pay in full in advance, you get slotted onto a particular scheduled launch. Here are Interorbital's product page and brochure (PDF).
I forsee (Score:5, Interesting)
Pirates in Space! (Score:4, Interesting)
Low earth orbit is above the law, literally, isn't it? Send up a few gigabytes of flash memory and a transmitter. Torrents from space!
Commercial applications (Score:5, Interesting)
The sign that a technology has really matured enough to be taken seriously is when it starts to have commercial applications. Moreover, the presence of businesses like this will help provide further incentive for the improvement of space related technologies.
However, it isn't clear to me who would use a half-pound satellite that can only last a few weeks. TFA lists the following possible applications:
Earth-from-space video imaging. Earth magnetic field measurement. Satellite orientation detection (horizon sensor, gyros, accelerometers, etc.). Orbital environment measurements (temperature, pressure, radiation, etc.). On-orbit hardware and software component testing (microprocessors, etc.). Tracking migratory animals from orbit. Testing satellite stabilization methods. Biological experiments. On-orbit advertising. Private e-mail
Honestly, I don't see much use of most of those as a general use. Certainly scientists will benefit from this sort of technology but I doubt anyone would try to use this for private e-mail systems. You would just use the internet and encrypt your stuff. The idea of using this sort of thing for low cost climate and weather data gathering is interesting. I suspect that as with many technologies, new uses will be developed that we cannot easily anticipate now that the technology is still young.
Hazardous material. (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand that the volume is currently small, but they are commercializing the burn-up of potentially hazardous material in earth atmosphere. Circuit boards contain many things that shouldn't be burned. I hope that they screen for hazardous material that shouldn't be put into the atmosphere.
I Call BS (Score:4, Interesting)
32 satellites at $8K each is only $256,000. Subtract the cost of the materials used to build the satellites. (I'm assuming they're not using class S parts, but solar panels, etc still ain't cheap.) They're seriously planning to deploy a working delivery system to space for that kind of money?
Was anyone else thinking... (Score:3, Interesting)
- Can I put a 1/2 pound of magnesium up there?
- How about a 1/2 pound of liquid oxy-acetylene?
- Where'd I put my AOL CD collection?
It would be fun if they just set up a space dock you could stand on and throw shit into the atmosphere to see what happens.
Re:planetes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Gravity guns are science fiction, but laser brooms [wikipedia.org] could bring down space junk. You fire a laser into space from the earth, and any space junk in its path gets partially ablated, which thrusts it into a more eccentric orbit, which increases atmospheric drag and makes its orbit decay faster.
CO2 cartridges to break earth's orbit? (Score:4, Interesting)
How many high pressure CO2 cartridges can you fit in one of those, and would they provide enough thrust to get your device out of earth's orbit? Maybe stick it in a figure 8 orbital pattern between the moon and earth, or shoot it off towards Mars. I would imagine you need substantially less thrust to break from earth's orbit for a lowly half-pound payload than say, a space shuttle, not to mention, the pressure differential is substantially greater.
Re:Pirates in Space! (Score:4, Interesting)
If it's bit torrent with enough people in the swarm, each person only needs to download a small part of the file, and then share that part with everyone else.
Re:I Call BS (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea behind the OTRAG design was that if each segment where identical, the manufacturing process could be streamlined to a very cost effective level, much like how cars are made.
More on the OTRAG project here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTRAG [wikipedia.org]
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/otrag.htm [astronautix.com]
Re:Do I... (Score:3, Interesting)
It says you can link up to four together at a time. I guess the first unit would have the antennas, thrusters and deployment, with up to three separate payloads.
Cheaper "Memorable" Options (Score:4, Interesting)
Option 1 (Daddy is Forever)
~1000USD to be cremated and then ~8,000USD** to be pressed into a half-carat loose diamond.
Option 2 (Daddy was an Astronaut-Burnt-Up-on-Reentry)
~1000USD to be cremated and then ~8000USD to be shot into space.
**ashes to diamonds [funeral-urn.com]
Re:Propoganda? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:CO2 cartridges to break earth's orbit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm I looked at this some more. It looks like there is only a 2,900 joule requirement to leave earth's orbit from LEO for a 1kg object. So you're looking at 1450 joules to leave earth's orbit at full weight; a CO2 cartridge provides about 150 joules of energy. You should be able to fit at least three CO2 cartridges in that canister, so you're already 40% of the way to deep space exploration using off the shelf technology! Plus each cartridge uses 12g of CO2, so the probe becomes lighter as it uses it's fuel. 60g of liquid oxygen/hydrogen peroxide should be enough to slingshot the probe around the moon towards the planet of your choice.
The PDF says you can link up to 4 of these together; in theory you could have two pressurized canisters of fuel, one canister functioning as the nozzle and flight computer, with the fourth canister holding your scientific instrument payload.
Marriage Proposal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pirates in Space! (Score:4, Interesting)
Low earth orbit is above the law, literally, isn't it? Send up a few gigabytes of flash memory and a transmitter. Torrents from space!
Maybe not so practical for your run-of-the-mill movie downloads, but for *very* sensitive political stuff, the sort of thing that tinfoil-wearing X-Files enthusiasts can only dream of proving, I can definitely see it being the go.
;)
That, or just use it to screw with SETI.
Re:Do I... (Score:3, Interesting)
Antennas covered:
Just buy a tape measure, that will snap out in a heart beat, to the right length for transmitting and should have very minimal weight.
Server covered:
somewhere in slashdot, there is a report of a full server on a 2" x 2" x 2" cube ( I think that's the size )
Deployment covered:
spring loaded like a jack in the box
thruster and guidance: got an idea
Electrodynamic tether using fishing line specifically fireline or spiderwire or spectra , if the tether can make the juice we have a chance at a small lightweight gyro and some sort of electric thrust
I know that I have exceeded 2 lbs, but this is slashdot, someone can reduce the weight.
Re:Pirates in Space! (Score:1, Interesting)
IANAE (Aerospace Engineer) but a telecom engineer with interest in aerospace. You do not need geostationary orbit. You can go with low earth orbit and a number of satellites, each working as a mobile base station, or a Node B in case of UMTS. The difference from mobile network is that the base stations are in motion and the subscriber devices are relatively static. Then, the satellite base stations carry the handovers as in usual terrestrial network.
Anyway, the idea that the outer space might be RIAA free is really exciting. I just got an idea for orbital hosting services. This would be kind of cool. However, rather than having the server farm on a satellite I would put in on a ship or drilling platform on international water and use satellite for connectivity. Satellite bandwidth is however very expensive (Spectrum use, long distance, poor SNR, and finally costs of launch).
Re:Weeks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mind you, would be great for making annoying messages to broadcast down upon unsuspecting populations. (I am sure I could easily build a low power TV transmitter + annoying several hours of program material (set to repeat) in less than 220 grams!) (how many 50 gram 4 gig MPEG players are around that would suffice for just the program material!)