Text 504, 57 rader
Skriven 2004-09-10 00:48:38 av Ellen K (1:379/45)
    Kommentar till text 500 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: Cube Sats - Really small cheap satellites in orbit
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"If you've got lots of room to put everything in, you end up not being too
careful with it. That's the challenge."

Sounds VERY familiar!

> From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@hotmail.com>
> First the cube PC and now the Cube Satellite
> http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/cube_sats_040908.html
> LOGAN, UTAH -- Experts say the big news in spacecraft building involves
> ultra-small CubeSats.
> These petite but powerful satellites are spearheading a hands-on revolution
> around the world. And what fist-sized CubeSats bring to space could mimic
> innovations sparked by the personal computer here on Earth.
> To look at them, you don't see much .and that's a good thing. No massive,
> expensive spacecraft that has been years in the making and loaded to its
> sprawling solar panels with super-electronics and other posh payload parts.
> A standard CubeSat is a motherboard of invention: About a 4-inch
> (10-centimeter) block of equipment that tips the scale at roughly 2 pounds
> (1 kilogram). A handful are already in space and with other launches planned
> for later this year.
> Peep inside a CubeSat and you'll spot off-the-shelf circuitry in the
> familiar form of microprocessors and modem ports, and other microchip
> devices typically used in cell phones, digital cameras and hand-held Global
> Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation units.
> CubeSats will make be easier and more cost effective to deploy into orbit.
> The CubeSat initiative is a global congregation of universities and private
> firms striving to advance small satellite technology. Of the participating
> universities, more than 60 percent of CubeSat developers reside in the
> United States.
> In June 2003, six CubeSats were lobbed into orbit from Russia's Plesetsk
> launch site, executed by Eurockot Launch Services GmbH of Bremen, Germany.
> Later this year, if all stays on track, over a dozen universities from
> around the world will take part in hurling their CubeSats into space via a
> Dnper rocket. This launcher -- an SS-18 missile sans warhead -- has been
> rehabilitated into a "ride for hire" booster offered by ISC Kosmotras.
> "When we started this, I thought that it made sense for everybody to
> collaborate," said Robert Twiggs, professor and consultant at Stanford
> University's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a pioneer in the
> rapidly growing world of small satellites. "I'm very pleased that it's going
> the way it is."
> Twiggs' main interest is in the development, launch and operation of small,
> econo-class orbiters to do feasibility demonstrations and to space-qualify
> new and novel components. He is also spearheading the miniaturization of
> space experiments for low-cost satellite missions.
> Commercial off-the-shelf
> CubeSats aren't built with special parts in huge NASA facilities.
> "We use everything we can get," Twiggs said. "If you've got lots of room to
> put everything in, you end up not being too careful with it. That's the
> challenge. You've got to really think hard when you're putting together a
> CubeSat."
> The key to building small is taking the "COTS" approach -- buying Commercial
> Off-The-Shelf. "I think that's really the way to go," Twiggs advised. For a
> few tens of dollars you can acquire capability that the "big guys" obtain at
> mega-dollar prices.

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