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Launch your own satellite for $15k (rocket-ride included!).


moonomaly

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Im not sure i completely get this, but im guessing you pay 15K and NASA launch your "satellite" from ISS (or wherever) and you can (if so inclined) add bits and bobs to it for experiments etc?. 

How is your satellite retrieved (if it even is), or is it more about the data it sends back to you for an experiment you may carry out?.

I'd add a small HD digi cam and record the the video stream.  

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I think there are cheaper options down to about £8K

It would be cool to have an SGL-SAT, perhaps recording meteor detections by listening to terrestrial radar e.g. graves and/or sending images back down to Earth?

Would 100 of us be willing to invest?

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I'm looking forward to a Drone flying above the Martian Surface. I believe that is on the Cards.
Sure I read it somewhere.
My apologies to Moonomaly for taking his post off topic a little ?.

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4 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I think there are cheaper options down to about £8K

It would be cool to have an SGL-SAT, perhaps recording meteor detections by listening to terrestrial radar e.g. graves and/or sending images back down to Earth?

Would 100 of us be willing to invest?

For 150 quid.. I'm in. 

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Needs a bit more thought.

I'll check prices (there may well be VAT on top etc.) and we have to build the satellite. I'd love to do the hardware but I'd suggest making it Rpi based and I don't have any rpi experience.

Might be best to use an online donation collector for openness - also would need to agree what happens if only a fraction of funds raised...

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This is the one:

http://www.interorbital.com/Tubesat Kits

 

Ties you to arduino which suits me ? but includes the basic hardware and gerbers for the PCBs

Would also need an academic institution to lead on the project. This could perhaps be an astronomical organisation with charitable status and educational aims.

 

Perhaps best to keep it as a 'topic for discussion' and see if an organisation wants to lead on it. I know one that is not astronomy led but may be interested.

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Yes interorbital, it was in my OP, $15k which is £11.4K at the moment.

I'm definitely in, i have novice skills in electronics, intermediate in programming - not a lot of time spent with duinos except for servo/motor control, but duino code is simple.

I've done a ton of reading on ion thrust experiments over the years and there have been successes in the vacuum, albeit at much reduced thrust due to the dielectric permissivity of space, i've also seen some calculations (which i hope to replicate) that show the lift induced in the simple, triangluar lifter model, is far in excess of what could be achieved with ion/air flow around the (aerodynamically-imperfect) aluminium skirt.

It requires HV though, which implies a relatively heavy power source, though i'm looking at topologies where i can get higher voltage output for much less total power input.

Ultimately i think it would be a micro-transformer and probably not be able to escape orbit, but you don't know until you simulate.

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, moonomaly said:

AFAIK You have no choice, it's in LEO then dies after about 6 months, decaying all the while, some info here and lots of stuff on YT etc : http://www.interorbital.com/Cubesat Kits

i meant if you managed to make a tiny ion thruster but i missed the bottom of your post where you say it probably wouldn't break orbit. 

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Yes most of the cube/tube-sat systems i've read about have no attitude control, but the ones that do use things like magnetorquers : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorquer

Purdue Uni was looking at water jets for attitude-control :

 

Need to do the maths, the orbital period is independent of mass, using magnetorques isn't doable since they operate against the earth's magnetic field.

I've got a test-bed for ion-wind experiments that i'll be using to compare the generated thrust with airflow thrust calculations, since there seems to be a large discrepancy between the thrust observed and the maxium thrust achievable via the relative airspeed.

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Is it the dove sats that use atmo resistance to orientate themselves? I think any mass given to propulsion is going to be at the expense of the data transmission ability. Be interesting to know how accurate the telemetry given to customers would be for the ability to track and receive data

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1 minute ago, moonomaly said:

Should probably have a different thread for those that want to explore escaping LEO ;+}

If we had the ability to squeeze at least 5Km/s Dv into a little cubesat to leave LEO we would be so rich we'd be owning the rockets not just the cubesats

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2 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

If we had the ability to squeeze at least 5Km/s Dv into a little cubesat to leave LEO we would be so rich we'd be owning the rockets not just the cubesats

I'll get back to you in 5 :)

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Just now, LukeSkywatcher said:

"and we have to build the satellite".

Ahhhhhhhh nuts. I thought they build it.

Im out.

Could be done with easily available parts, or custom boards, depends what you want it do do once it's up there ? Don't be out ! :)

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