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Space Education Science Technology

Students Design A Satellite Via Internet 137

Posted by timothy from the a-piece-here-a-piece-there dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments while the main satellite will test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read this summary for more details."
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Students Design A Satellite Via Internet More

Students Design A Satellite Via Internet

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  • Design to construction in less than a year... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by goretexguy ( 619280 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:19PM (#10578627)
    Great. But will it work properly?

    • Re:Design to construction in less than a year... (Score:5, Funny)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:27PM (#10578721)
      only for the next two years. After the internet dies, this satellite is history too.
    • The point is not really to get it to work properly, it's to interest students in space tech.
      Space missions are a problem, because the project lifespan from first spade to launch is typically five to ten years, too long for students to have a chance to get involved without a career decision.
      These cubesats are an excellent idea, because they can hitch a ride on some commercial launch since their payload&volume are minimal.

      • I agree, mostly.

        It's nice to allow students (and their professors) this opportunity, but given their very small size (10cm!) these aren't terribly useful or complex creations.

        They're more like the 'Hello, World!' version of satellites. How instructive can these things be? Perhaps the real lesson is how the distributed group worked together, rather than what they produced?

        • Well being one of the students working on SSETI-Express and also on cubesats I respectfully disagree.

          The cubesat AAUSAT-II [aausatii.aau.dk]the we (the students at AAU AAU [www.aau.dk]) are working on includes systems that are more advanced than many commercial satellites.

          The communication system utilizes a CAN-bus which is something NASA is still doing feasability studies on. The attitude determination and control system provides full three axis stabilisation and control using magnetorquers and momentum wheels for actuation and sunsen
        • ESA is not actually being "nice" just for the philantropy of it. I know that they are having trouble recruiting young people because of the high level of commitment which the field requires. This kind of project creates contact with interested students who might otherwise not have approached the space agency.

      • Space missions are a problem, because the project lifespan from first spade to launch is typically five to ten years, too long for students to have a chance to get involved without a career decision.

        Welcome to the real world of engineering. Few projects of any value take less than five to ten years, it's not unique to space, but common to every engineering discipline.

        These cubesats are an excellent idea, because they can hitch a ride on some commercial launch since their payload&volume are minimal.

        • What I don't get is various design programs (I'm thinking Autodesk stuff here) have had online collaboration built into them for a while now, other than the fact this thing goes into space, what's the big deal?

          Jaysyn

        • Welcome to the real world of engineering. Few projects of any value take less than five to ten years, it's not unique to space, but common to every engineering discipline.

          Please avoid the patronizing tone. And if you're implying that a space mission is "just another project", I have to respectfully disagree; I think there are few areas where fault-tolerance is so close to nil.

          Assuming that the commercial customer gives his OK for the weight and volume to be released, and is satisfied that the parasite

    • These satellites are not "simple" and some failures should be expected... see: NASA [nasa.gov]

  • But will it crash in China? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:20PM (#10578638)
    Inquiring governments want to know.

  • Roland the Whammer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:21PM (#10578641) Homepage Journal
    Roland Piquepaille ? Isn't that the guy who posts summaries to drive traffic up to his website?

    • Re:Roland the Whammer (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes it is. He just seems to troll around on science websites finding news and posting it to slashdot, including a lame link to his site which just posts the same crap I could get by reading the article. I've gotten pretty good.. I can pick out his articles before even noticing the author now.
      • Wait until he finds out that the sentence "Read this summary for more details" gives it away.

        Note that if he was less of a hypocrit, it would read "Read this summary for the same details but with lots of ads that make me rich."

    • Re:Roland the Whammer (Score:5, Informative)

      by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:24PM (#10578680) Homepage Journal
      That's right. Notice how every single one of his stories has a link to the real article, and a traffic link to his website, plus another traffic link under his name.

      A lot of the stories are pretty interesting, which helps. But, wouldn't they be just as good without the traffic links? If he wants a link to his site, it's right there under his name already.

      • Re:Roland the Whammer (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I don't understand why everybody cares so much if this guy's blog gets more traffic or not. What is so morally horrendous about linking back to your own site if it contains valid information on topics that Slashdot editors like to post about?

      • Re:Roland the Whammer (Score:5, Informative)

        by bleckywelcky ( 518520 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:58PM (#10579721)
        As well, he is a submission whore. So far this year, he has had 103 stories [slashdot.org] show up on SlashDot. So how many has he submitted? Let's say 1 out of every 4 gets accepted (at most). That's 412 submissions (at least) in the past 305 days. I wonder how much he makes off the advertising on his site and if it's a business I should try to get in on ...

    • Re:Roland the Whammer (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:22PM (#10579264) Homepage Journal
      "Roland Piquepaille ? Isn't that the guy who posts summaries to drive traffic up to his website?"

      Roland Piquepaille? Isn't that the guy people bitch about, even though bitching about it gives Slashdot more reason to keep him?

      • Roland Piquepaille? Isn't that the guy people bitch about, even though bitching about it gives Slashdot more reason to keep him?

        More reason to keep him? That should be easy enough to fix. Just make it your policy to mod down as overrated any comment posted to a Piquepaille story that's not a Piquepaille criticism, and encourage others to do the same. I suspect that that would make his submissions of much less value to Slashdot.

        Personally, I think the guy's abusing the system and that /.'s editors deserve

  • it looks like .. (Score:4, Funny)

    by r0b0t b0y ( 565885 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:21PM (#10578652)
    .. a borg cube! it even has mini-cube satellites that make me think of decentralized systems (i know it's not, but that's what it makes me think of)
    • . a borg cube! it even has mini-cube satellites that make me think of decentralized systems (i know it's not, but that's what it makes me think of)

      And it was even made by a collective of students!
  • design to construction in less than a year

    Great, they can build 2 more [slashdot.org]

  • What next? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:22PM (#10578661)
    The first satellite has been automatically generated by the Internet. Pretty soon, the skies will be filled with satellites offering penis enlargement, Nigerian scams, and hot stock tips.

  • Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:24PM (#10578685) Homepage
    This is very impressive. The level of detail required on such a complex project is often daunting. To acheive a design with team members so far flung is nothing short of incredibe. I am not entirely sure what to make of it. It's a little like Linus' idea of "many eyeballs". Except in this case its not finding bugs its bulding satellites.

    Imagine an extention of this work being used to solve problems and develop workarounds for breakage on the ISS or (dare I say it....) Mars.

    This is really very cool.

  • why can't we do it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:28PM (#10578724)
    with the collective thinking power of slashdot, I'm sure we could achieve something equivalent, or better.

    imagine a large, spherical grey satellite...

    any post made by the trolls against this satellite would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they have obtained. This satellite would be the ultimate power in LEO!

    trolls: That's no communications satellite. It's a slashdotting station!
    • Somehow, someway, it will be related to goatse or the GNAA. "The new GNAA orbital induction station is now operational!" Especially if it looks like a great sphere or pair of spheres in orbit. *cough*

  • Whee fuck Piqy! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:28PM (#10578730)
    Students Design a Satellite via Internet

    A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments while the main satellite will test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read more...

    Here is what ESA says about this collective work over Internet.

    Scattered in universities across Europe, a 250-strong team of students have never collectively met in person, but between them they have built a space-ready satellite.

    Collaboration between the pan-European network of students, universities and experts involved in the Student Space Education and Technology Initiative (SSETI) has been carried out via the internet.

    Now that the completed subsystems are being delivered to ESA's European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, remote participants from Italy to Denmark are eagerly following the integration process through daily photo updates, the integration logbook, and even a webcam.

    What is the mission of this satellite?

    Like a Russian doll, SSETI Express will carry inside it three smaller 'cubesats' -- 10-centimetre cube technology testers built respectively by universities in Germany, Japan and Norway -- for deployment when in orbit. The main SSETI Express satellite itself will test and characterise a propulsion system, return images of the Earth and serve as a transponder for amateur radio users.

    The future SSETI Express satellite Here is a drawing of the future SSETI Express satellite. (Credit: ESA) It measures only 60 by 60 by 70 centimeters and is part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3. If everything goes fine, it will be launched in May 2005.

    The SSETI team is already working on another satellite, the European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO). This one will be more complex than Express, weigh 100 kilograms, and it will be launched by an Ariane 5 rocket in 2007.

    Besides these two satellites, the ESA looks at the future.

    Coordination between groups is carried out using a dedicated news server and weekly Internet Relay Chats (IRCs) as well as the SSETI website. Face-to-face meetings are the exception rather than the rule, with group representatives meeting every six months for a workshop at ESTEC.

    Beyond Express and ESEO, SSETI has hopes of becoming a fully-fledged facilitation network for all student space activity, with members carrying out detailed feasibility studies for a European Student Moon Orbiter (ESMO) a European Student Moon Rover (ESMR) and even an orbiter for Mars.

    And here is the conclusion of Philippe Willekens of the ESA Education Department.

    "This unique opportunity for students is also a unique opportunity for ESA to see how the young generation is working through a wide internet-distributed system, with little resources, but great enthusiasm and energy."

    Good luck to all!

    Source: European Space Agency news release, October 19, 2004

  • Obviously.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:29PM (#10578732)
    this could be used by terrorists to spy on God-fearing American citizens. Ban it! Ban it, I say!

  • In other news (Score:1, Redundant)

    by masouds ( 451077 )
    In other news, GNU/Linux still remains the biggest projects ever collaborated on the internet.

  • amsat (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:30PM (#10578750)
    Aha, an other HAM satellite! Don't forget HAMs will be able to recieve data from Mars if this mission [amsat-dl.org] succeeds. (ok, at 5 baud or so, but an interesting project nonetheless, and a reason for me to get a license.

    • Re:amsat (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:50PM (#10578932)
      Well, let's see..


      • Yep, amateur sateliites are very, very cool. Half a dozen in orbit working right now, a dozen more coming the next five years or so.
      • Most of the ones up right now are workable with about $US 1K worth of equipment, some for less, some for a *lot* less.
      • And with that said, to hear P5A (the one going to Mars) you're going to need a surplus 5+ meter dish (starts at about a ton), a two-axis mount with positioners accurate to much less than a tenth of a degree, and a very, very high performance microwave receiver.


      While a large fraction of the radio astronomy community are hams, very few hams actually work in radio astronomy (or for JPL's Deep Space Network). So don't go thinking you're going to hear P5A unless you always wear wind up watches because quartz ones are banned at work. :-)

      • > While a large fraction of the radio astronomy community are hams,

        This goes a long way towards explaining why SETI hasn't found anything besides cloves and pineapple.
      • Here [amsat-dl.org] is a pdf file discussing the requirements, hopefully new computer processing techniques will lighten the job, although I'm aware it won't be easy. I might have to join up with a local club. Nevertheless I believe that new techniques will be searched for to ease the receiving requirements. During the last years, low-power transmitting is a real hype, people are making connections around the globe with milliwatts(!!) of transmitting power.
    • I might be mistaken, but you don't need a license to listen, do you? I thought you only needed a license to transmit...

      Not that I'm doing either without a license, mind you. (I wouldn't have the time.)

  • I like this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by apostrophesemicolon ( 816454 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:32PM (#10578769) Journal
    it seems like more and more people are taking things into their own hands, bypassing the government agencies' bureaucratic process that goes for ages..

    we've seen the SpaceShipOne made it, and now a 'brute force' construction of a satellite.. this only leads to the question: what's next?? LEZ DO DIS!

    -A simple hydrogen-powered car model that's ready to be mass produced? (instead of stuck being a prototype)
    -better next-gen ASIMOs?
    -advanced propulsion technology?
    -human habitat for mars?

    sheez, when I thnk about how people can combine their power and time to bruteforce-building something.. almost nothing is impossible
    as for me, im still working on my warp machine :p

    • Re:I like this... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Muad'Dave ( 255648 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:02PM (#10579043) Homepage

      Amateur radio operators worldwide have been doing this for 43 years!

      From AMSAT:

      The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (as AMSAT is officially known) was first formed in the District of Columbia in 1969 as an educational organization. Its goal was to foster Amateur Radio's participation in space research and communication. AMSAT was founded to continue the efforts,
      begun in 1961 [emphasis added], by Project OSCAR, a west coast USA-based group which built and launched the very first Amateur Radio satellite, OSCAR, on December 12, 1961, barely four years after the launch of Russia's first Sputnik.

    • it seems like more and more people are taking things into their own hands, bypassing the government agencies' bureaucratic process that goes for ages..

      You might try reading the article and noting that this bird was in fact sponsored by a bureaucratic agency and paid for with said agencies funds.

      we've seen the SpaceShipOne made it, and now a 'brute force' construction of a satellite.. this only leads to the question: what's next??

      We've seen Rutan build what amounts to an extreme amusement park ride, and

  • Boycott Roland Piquespam (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:33PM (#10578779)
    Attention Editors: Roland is a cash-for-linkage spammer who uses each Slashdotting you award him to rake in a mint in Google adwords.

    Attention Slashdotters: Join the fight against Roland by mirroring his content and not clicking through.

    Roland "writes":

    A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year. The SSETI Express [esa.int] is currently under integration in one of the technology centers of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Netherlands. Only a few selected members of the team will attend the launch which will be part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3 in May 2005. The SSETI Express will embark three mini 'cubesats' for specific experiments whilethe main satellitewill test a propulsion system and act as a transponder for amateur radio users. I sure hope that this collaborative action will be successful. Read more...

    Here is what ESA says about this collective work over Internet.

    Scattered in universities across Europe, a 250-strong team of students have never collectively met in person, but between them they have built a space-ready satellite.
    Collaboration between the pan-European network of students, universities and experts involved in the Student Space Education and Technology Initiative (SSETI) has been carried out via the internet.
    Now that the completed subsystems are being delivered to ESA's European Space Technology Centre (
    ESTEC [esa.int]) in the Netherlands, remote participants from Italy to Denmark are eagerly following the integration process through daily photo updates, the integration logbook, and even a webcam.

    What is the mission of this satellite?

    Like a Russian doll, SSETI Express will carry inside it three smaller 'cubesats' -- 10-centimetre cube technology testers built respectively by universities in Germany, Japan and Norway -- for deployment when in orbit. The main SSETI Express satellite itself will test and characterise a propulsion system, return images of the Earth and serve as a transponder for amateur radio users.
    Here is a drawing of the future SSETI Express satellite. (Credit: ESA) It measures only 60 by 60 by 70 centimeters and is part of the Russian mission Cosmos DMC-3. If everything goes fine, it will be launched in May 2005.

    The SSETI team is already working on another satellite, the European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO). This one will be more complex than Express, weigh 100 kilograms, and it will be launched by an Ariane 5 rocket in 2007.

    Besides these two satellites, the ESA looks at the future.

    Coordination between groups is carried out using a dedicated news server and weekly Internet Relay Chats (IRCs) as well as the SSETI website. Face-to-face meetings are the exception rather than the rule, with group representatives meeting every six months for a workshop at ESTEC.
    Beyond Express and ESEO, SSETI has hopes of becoming a fully-fledged facilitation network for all student space activity, with members carrying out detailed feasibility studies for a European Student Moon Orbiter (ESMO) a European Student Moon Rover (ESMR) and even an orbiter for Mars.

    And here is the conclusion of Philippe Willekens of the ESA Education Department.

    "This unique opportunity for students is also a unique opportunity for ESA to see how the young generation is working through a wide internet-distributed system, with little resources, but great enthusiasm and energy."

    Good luck to all!

    Source: European Space Agency news release, October 19, 2004


    • Re:Boycott Roland Piquespam (Score:4, Funny)

      by fritter ( 27792 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:53PM (#10578969)
      Wait, we're having a hard time getting Slashdotters to not read the article? Did I miss something?
      • Remember, there is a difference between clicking on an article link and then actually reading the article. I'm sure everyone clicks the link... it's just that 90% of slashdotters hit the back button about 2 nanoseconds later. :)


    • Oh, bloody hell! Not another Slag Rolland Festival!

      Why do people get so worked up about this? Yes, we know he hopes to divert traffic to his site and yes his summaries are of dubious value compared to the genuine article. But for god's sake, how is it hurting anyone? Nobody can deny that the stories he brings to /. are consistently interesting and add to this site as well as his own. Do you feel you've wasted a slice of your precious band-width? Get over it!

    • Attention Slashdotters: Join the fight against Roland by mirroring his content and not clicking through.

      Mirroring? You mean copying it? Imagine if everyone was so blasé about copyright - bye bye GPL for starters. Dont like his work? Dont read it, write your own instead.

  • My satellite (Score:2, Funny)

    by r2q2 ( 50527 )
    Well I built my satellite out of an TI-89 calculator and some metal boxes. I programmed it myself and launched it using my model rocket. So there.

  • Space monopolies are bad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by James McP ( 3700 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:35PM (#10578800)
    I read an article recently (http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~24 79286,00.html) that NASA can't get rid of Lockheed despite the cockups with Genesis, Mars Climate observer and Mars Polar Observer because Lockheed has too many of the people with experience. The only way to avoid this is to get more people in the loop.

    NASA has a program where high schoolers can put together an experiment to be run in the pressurized portion of the shuttle, which is great, but doesn't compare to the fact that there are now three colleges that have experience building orbital devices and an untold number of individuals who were involved in the collaboration. If the ESA keeps this up we might see several european aerospace companies form in the next decade.

    Look out Lockheed.

    • Re:Space monopolies are bad (Score:4, Informative)

      by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:11PM (#10579130)
      If the ESA keeps this up we might see several european aerospace companies form in the next decade.

      Yeah, [eads.com] like [alcatel.com] there [alenia-aeronautica.it] are [intespace.fr] none [terma.com] already... [www.iabg.de]

      • I left out the word "new" in that sentence, didn't I? Obviously there are several european space corporations out there, just to service the communication industry if nothing else.

        Since the "new" is implicit in "form" my point remains.
    • lmao. There's a difference between some dinky 80 kg 2' x 2' x 2' cube [tuwien.ac.at] designed to be launched into SSO at 668km [tuwien.ac.at] and a ~9000 kg beast [nasa.gov] designed to propel itself out of HEO and into an orbit around the icy moons of Jupiter to study their formation and composition with a vast instrument suite [nasa.gov].

      I'm not knocking their efforts, and I admire the work they have done; but this team of students has only designed a small, light satellite that performs a couple of on-board experiments and relays the information back t

    • I read an article recently (http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~24 79286,00.html) that NASA can't get rid of Lockheed despite the cockups with Genesis, Mars Climate observer and Mars Polar Observer because Lockheed has too many of the people with experience. The only way to avoid this is to get more people in the loop.

      NASA has a program where high schoolers can put together an experiment to be run in the pressurized portion of the shuttle, which is great, but doesn't compare to the fact that

      • The difference between this bird (SSETI) and the ones LockMart builds is roughly the same leap as between a hobbyist Z-80/S-100 kit and a Cray minframe.

        History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes (Twain)

        They have to start somewhere. Those little Z-80, 8008, etc hobby computers didn't look like much to the mainframe and mini people in their day, but they are the direct predecessors of the machine I'm typing this on, the machine you're reading this on, and the /. servers themselves.

        Mainframes and min

    • The current incarnation of the NASA/AFRL sponsored University Nanosat [universitynanosat.org] competition, which recently completed its Critical Design Review, has 12 or 13 universities involved. This is the 3rd time around for the program. Previous incarnations produced satellites from Stanford [stanford.edu], Arizona State, CU Boulder, and New Mexico State [149.169.24.143], and several other schools. Plus the Cubesat [calpoly.edu] program is letting even high-schools get involved in building small but functional satellites.

      Having said all that, what Lockheed really needs

      • Hmm, two posts in a row about SSTL. You wouldn't happen to work there would you? ;-)

        • Unfortunately not :( I don't particularly want to live in Guildford. But I admire their work a lot, mostly because they've done a lot of things that I think should have been done a long time ago. And having worked in the space industry in the US I am very well aware of just how scared of SSTL some of the folks there are.

  • Build your own (Score:2, Interesting)

    by clockmaker ( 626182 )
    courtesy of Pumpkin, Inc. (makers of the Salvo RTOS)

    http://www.cubesatkit.com/ [cubesatkit.com]

  • - but I did install the screensaver once..

  • Duh (Score:1)

    by ktheory ( 64289 )
    Does this mean that all these years, satellite designers have NOT been using the internet?

  • I for one welcome our new satellite ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:40PM (#10578837) Homepage Journal
    overlords, but I ask what they hope to achieve by spying on us? I am the only one with any important data, and I keep it all in my head. I recently constructed a new piece of security headgear, the plans for which I will make Open Source after my death. Let's just say they don't even know I'm here when I'm wearing it, like right now (so they won't know I'm typing this).
  • I recall (was it slashdot?) that a university consortia launches mini-sats in the US. A mini-sat must fit inside a 10 cm (4 inch) edge cube and weigh no more than two kilos (4.4 lbs). The launch fee is $25K.

  • The satellite story is impressive (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I work at a lab where we build comm sats for the govmnt and what these kids did has been done before [US radio amateurs put up the "echo" [sp?] sat last summer for instance] but not by so many, and not so inexpensively.

    But where is the disclaimer that the notorious Roland is either under the OSTG umbrella or kicking back ad revenues under the table to /.?

    or maybe some of us are jealous our sumissions get roundfiled a lot more often than not?
  • they send Roland Piquepaille up on their satellite. I'm sure they'll find him a big asset to the mission.

  • Practical Application (Score:4, Funny)

    by DigitalRaptor ( 815681 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @02:51PM (#10578947)
    In a more "everyday" application, Martha Stewart is using the same collaboration techniques to connect 118 prisoners from 13 women's prisons to perfect her recipe for beef stroganoff...

  • Please, more clue. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jemfinch ( 94833 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:02PM (#10579041) Homepage
    A group of 250 students from many European universities has collectively designed a satellite by using a dedicated news server and weekly chats on Internet. By using the Web, the virtual team was able to move from design to construction in less than a year.


    Last I checked, "the web" didn't include NNTP. Surely Slashdot is above the uneducated synonymity between the internet and "the Web."

    Jeremy
    • Last time I checked there are lots of "Web" based news servers out there.
    • What makes you think that "the Web" is the the World Wide Web?
    • Surely Slashdot is above the uneducated synonymity between the internet and "the Web."

      We're not above it, and don't call us Shirley.
    • Maybe they used a web interface to access

  • Ha! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:03PM (#10579046)
    That's nothing. A group of scientists invented the Internet without using the Internet.
  • The amazing thing is that they all did it from their parents' basements.

  • Them socialists sure is lagging behind America (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:35PM (#10579444) Journal
    Everytime any sort of comparison comes up with respect to America versus Europe, all I hear from ordinary Americans or the political right is that European countries are on their asses and that America is the greatest country in the world, yadda yadda. I mean, after all, considering how "socialist" Europe is (at least according to the Right and most ordinary Americans), we are of course beating the pants off them at science, commerce, and of course economically.

    Of course from time to time cruel reality intrudes upon that collective delusion. Like right now....

    • Everytime any sort of comparison comes up with respect to America versus Europe, all I hear from ordinary Americans or the political right is that European countries are on their asses and that America is the greatest country in the world, yadda yadda. I mean, after all, considering how "socialist" Europe is (at least according to the Right and most ordinary Americans), we are of course beating the pants off them at science, commerce, and of course economically.

      Of course from time to time cruel reality int

  • ...One-Click launch. Is it patented?

  • Interesting Story... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CaptainTux ( 658655 ) <papillion@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:58PM (#10579734) Homepage Journal
    I think that, more than anything, this project shows two things: 1) that national (or even international) borders do not hinder great minds collectively working as though side by side, and 2) that the private and academic sectors will be where the future of defense, communications, etc will come from and not the government.

    I'm particularly excited about the success of this project because it ties into a project that I've been researching for a few weeks now but thought was impossible. Basically, it's using temporary subdermal GPS technology coupled with sats to enable the easy location and rescue of those who go missing in a hot zone (with my current focus being on Iraq/Afghanistan). Until today when I read this article, I was convinced that this would never see the light of day because -- even though I understood what needed to be done and could probably assemble a good group of people to do it -- I would run into government hurdle after government hurdle and the costs would simply be too high to do it privately. After reading this story though, I realize that isn't true and am quite excited about seriously pursuing this project! Now, to recruit, research, build and deploy.

    I know there are people here who poo-poo this as something "already" done by the ham folks. But I believe that there is something substantially different about this success. On one hand, I think that we're going to see a lot of positives come from this. On the other hand I think there will be some negatives as governments start to realize that they no longer hold the monopoly on "gee-whiz" technology simply because they employ top scientists. They will be forced to sit up and take notice of private projects now and that could be a double edged sword. I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

  • Wow, that's some feat of engineering. And I thought the A-Team were ingenious!
  • ...I'd rather see those same 250 students put together the ultimate CGI pr0no via the internet. Oh wait, no i don't.
  • Amateur satellites are of course nothing new, but it is great to see a bureaucracy like ESA more or less embrace the sort of chaotic collaboration that is one of the internet's strong points.
  • This satellite contains a container to dispense three even smaller (10x10x10cm, 1kg) microsatellites while in orbit. Here is one of them [rocketrange.no] designed by students in Norway. Hey, some students from my department have been designing the communication subsystem for it. Good the launch has finally been arranged (NCUBE should have lifted off already according to the plans). If I recall correctly, one of the missions of the Norwegian microsatellite is to count reindeed (with little transponders) in Northern Norway, t
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • While I don't want to rain on their parade, this is only a single step in the process of building a flight ready bird. Doing it purely through the net is pretty impressive though.

    But, in my experience building a CubeSat, it was the time from final "design" to flight ready status that went over time and over budget on every level. If they expect to have a flight model ready in less then a year they're dreaming, even if this was at one location with the team all centered and working together that's going
  • i wish i could find more detail than this

    http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:Z32wRgndSjYJ: www.estec.esa.nl/outreach/sseti/Textfiles/sseti.pd f+SSETI+internet+collaboration&hl=en [216.239.41.104]
    4.2 Data/Design structure
    During the design and building of the spacecraft, participants of SSETI will be located all over Europe. Thisresults in a very unconventional, new communication approach, which is called distributed development.The main characteristic of this approach is that modern communication tools (Internet,
  • Read this summary for more details

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