ChrisDayVACCO

Well, another green monopropellant, LMP-103S, is on orbit with 48 different 1 Newton thrusters on 12 propulsion systems. They have worked well since the first use in space in 2010. Here is a link for more information: http://ecaps.space/hpgp-characteristics.php Chris

There are propulsion systems for CubeSats designed for destinations like Mars and Lunar orbit and the popular ones avoid Hydrazine due to its toxicity and high cost to work with. Here are some links for more information: Lunar Flashlight propulsion system: http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/lunar-flashlight-propulsion-system/ Mars-Cube-One (MarCO) propulsion system: http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/jpl-marco-micro-propulsion-system/ Here is a CubeSat prop system in orbit right now: http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/reaction-control-propulsion-module/

I have played more than 500 hours and live in LA county. Please see my private message to you for my contact information. Thank you, Chris

Kryten, you are right. There are a lot of CubeSat collaborators with money. Here is a world map of collaborators including companies and government organizations. Even JPL and NASA are involved with CubeSat designs leaving Earth orbit! JPL and NASA include companies and universities in the CubeSat mission so that many different groups benefit. http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/cubesat-propulsion-delivery/#more-465 http://www.cubesat.org/collaborate/ http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/jpl-marco-micro-propulsion-system/

I recommend choosing one of the CMUcam boards. They output raw data for image processing and do image processing inside so that you can get processed data. Want to know the centeroid of the blue in the image? The CMUcam will tell you the X and Y coordinates of that and then send you the raw image if you wish. Here is more data on the latest version of the camera: http://www.cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5 Also, I have a background in CubeSat development and specialize in electronics and propulsion. Please let me know if you have any more questions.

Is anybody going to the 13th Annual CubeSat Developer’s Workshop? It is in San Luis Obispo at Cal Poly and there is a information on various types of CubeSat and Nano-Sat propulsion systems there. There will be a couple hundred people there including students, government and private industry. Here is a link with more information: http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/13th-annual-cubesat-developers-workshop/

Using super-heated water as a propellant has been considered in the past. The two difficulties are: 1. The energy to boil water is enormous! It is over 700 Watt Hours per liter. 2. Water containers usually break when water freezes because of the water expansion. Because of this, the water must be kept above freezing at all times. Here is a Wikipedia article on steam powered rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_rocket

You are right. It is called BioSentinel. Here is a presentation on it from a CubeSat Workshop: http://www.cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2014/Ricco_BioSentinel.pdf

On another CubeSat topic: The 13th Annual CubeSat Developers' Workshop is coming on April 20-22! Registration will open in coming weeks. It is all student run and it is at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. If you are able to go, message me and we can meet up there. The workshop is a great way to see what people are doing with CubeSats, what hardware is available and "lessons learned" by experienced CubeSat developers! Here is information on previous CubeSat Workshops: http://blog.cubesat.org/index.php/workshops/past-workshops Here is where the next workshop's information will be posted: http://www.cubesat.org/index.php

NASA has already done some work on genetically modified bacteria and yeast in LEO in a CubeSat. Here are some links that we can learn from: http://www.cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2007/Yost_Bruce.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PharmaSat

You are right about the 12U CubeSats becoming more common in the future. You can already buy a 12U CubeSat launcher: http://www.planetarysystemscorp.com/ That size would increase the scientific payload mass on a CubeSat tremendously!

Good point. The Apollo series LEMs had an initial mass of 15,200 kg and a decent thrust of 45 kN so its acceleration is about 3 m/s. A 3kg 3U CubeSat with the four 100 mN thrusters gives only 0.13 m/s. That is too little to oppose the Moon's gravity. With the Moon's surface gravity of 1.6 m/s^2, a thruster with a TWR of 2 would need to have about 5 N of thrust. A Swedish company, ECAPS, has small 5 N thrusters that they are testing but they would be larger than the 100 mN thrusters sized for CubeSats.

The batteries on the Falcon 9 are Li-ion and redundant on the first and second stages. (I just checked on the Falcon 9 Users Guide.) Older rocket designs used thermal batteries which were one time use. I am glad that launch providers are moving to rechargeable batteries because this opens up more possibilities 1. of the upper stage operating as a satellite and 2. for battery testing without replacing the battery after every test.

I guess it all depends on the end goal of the CubeSat. If you want to get to Lunar orbit, the rocket's upper stage can get you there. However, if you want to land a 6U CubeSat with today's technology, I would use the rocket's upper stage to get to low lunar orbit and then use a CubeSat propulsion system to perform the final landing. A CubeSat thruster 1U in size can provide 697 m/s. A larger tank for that thruster, for a 6U CubeSat, can provide ~1.7 km/s of Delta V which is just enough to land on the moon. Here is the current propulsion system designed for a 3U CubeSat: http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/adn-micropropulsion-system/

If the F9 can get to LTO, CubeSats with onboard propulsion can probably deploy and get to the moon from there. Vermont Technical College has a design for a lunar orbiter and lander in a 3U CubeSat package. They have presented the design at a CubeSat Workshop in 2010: http://cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2010/3_1520_carl-brandon-developersworkshop-2010-revised.pdf

I would think that a solution would be to bring a simple scraper arm and scrape the regolith. Then we could use a camera (color, IR or other) to inspect the exposed surface. This setup would not require any complex or expensive equipment but would still provide a large amount of useful scientific data and would be completely reusable.

Thank you for this topic answer. I have been having this problem on my laptop and my battery has been draining while KSP runs in the background!

Solar sails are pretty cool for slow and long duration propulsion once their technology matures. For example, a couple of solar sail CubeSats were designed to simply deploying a solar sail successfully: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/lightsail-1.htm A current technology designed for CubeSat propulsion for 1U, 2U 3U and larger CubeSats and SmallSats are cold and hot gas thrusters packaged in complete assemblies. The assemblies include the thrusters, valves, propellant tank, electronics, etc. Here are some examples: http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/ Also, my profile picture is of the propulsion system used on Mars CubeSat One (MarCO), which is a 6U CubeSat and will use its propulsion system for course corrections and pointing control on its journey to Mars. The good news is that there are several mature propulsion system options available for CubeSats depending on our needs.

The cryogenic equipment could be less than 5 tonnes. It would consume a lot of electricity and produce at a much lower rate than the current ISRU, though. The Linde L70 is an operational cryogenic refrigeration unit for helium liquification and has less than a 5 tonne mass.

Hello all, I am sorry to be late to the forums but I have a background building CubeSats, especially CubeSat propulsion systems at VACCO, so I might be able to provide some suggestions and mentoring. There is a CubeSat Workshop twice a year where many designs and developments are shown. I can supply a lot of links for more information but for now just google, "Chris Day CubeSat" if you would like information on CubeSat presentations that I have given.

I would enjoy this fog of exploration. It would cause me to send more craft and take more time to mature my knowledge of each planet/moon system. It would take longer but there would be more exploring involved. The only disadvantage is that the KSP wiki will tell me everything that I need to know about the planets and moons that I am going to before I go there.

Thank you, Squad, for making such a wonderful and different game. My wife says that I am obsessed with KSP and she is probably right. I work around Aerospace Engineers and I have never had orbital mechanics come alive for me as it does in KSP!