Cracker-Size Satellites To Launch With Endeavour

Obfiscator writes with news of the upcoming deployment of satellite-on-a-chip devices measuring just 3.8cm x 3.8cm x 0.2cm. The satellites are set to launch with Endeavour on its final flight. "These three miniature satellites are being launched as a proof-of-concept. As such, they're being deployed in very low orbit, and should return to earth fairly quickly in order to avoid becoming dangers for other satellites. 'They each contain seven solar cells, a microprocessor, an antenna and amplifier, power storage in capacitors, and switching circuitry to turn on the microprocessor when the stored energy is enough to create a single radio-frequency emission.' Due to their size, atmospheric drag would slow them down without burning them up, allowing them to study the uppermost atmosphere of wherever they are deployed next: Venus, Titan, Europe, and Jupiter are all possibilities."

"Chip" Sats, fundamentally new kind of spacecraft?

[wisebabo]

Here's my story submission which according to slashdot logs I submitted on Thursday, April 28@1:25am. I assume this was just an oversight on the part of the editors, no problem, I just wanted to bring up the larger (smaller?) issues regarding having spacecraft design directly coupled to the exponentially increasing (decreasing?) semiconductor fabrication industry which has been in progress now for over half a century.

"Here's a way to harness Moore's law (which has given us many orders of magnitudes of improvement) to spaceflight (which is still using technology more or less developed in the middle of the 20th century). Some researchers at Cornell will be launching their "Chip" sats, tiny 1" square satellites affixed(?) to the Endeavour space shuttle. "Their small size allows them to travel like space dust," said Peck. "Blown by solar winds, they can 'sail' to distant locations without fuel. ..." Hopefully they "may travel to Saturn within the next decade, and as they flutter down through its atmosphere, they will collect data about chemistry, radiation and particle impacts."

While I really believe this is the future, I do have some questions. Although much can be miniaturized (nano-rized?), I'm wondering about some things such as optics (for cameras) and antenna/power (for transmitting the results back home). So while these may very well flutter down Saturn's atmosphere, there may need to be a large(r) mothership capable of transmitting the results home. (This was the mechanism used by Greg Bear in his novel "Queen of Angels" where his interstellar ship dropped "coin" sized probes to explore the worlds of Alpha Centauri.)

With the retirement of Endeavour we have the end of one technology coinciding with the birth of another."