henryrasia

Ask Mazon Del (I guess he's in charge of the biology part of the mission) if it'd be useful to observe the moss with a camera/with a microscope/with special cameras (infrared, etc). What other aspects of it will we be monitoring? Keep in mind we want as much of actually useful data as we can. CAMERA NERVAfan and I think the GoPro would be best because they are sturdy, HD, and actually smaller in length than the other options... I wrote down their weights and dimensions on the doc. ON AN UNRELATED NOTE: I've just found the ISS only releases cubesats if their parts have already physically been to space and survived (in experimental flights). I don't know about brute launches but that's something we should keep an eye on.

Great! Do you want to be added to edit-able list? I'd need a gmail in that case. Summary of things he added: Cameras discussion Organizing the project And some other things

Hey again! Update! So, I've decided to predict the trajectories using KSP's sphere of influence solution, my supervisor says it'll be fine. Later I'll have to assess the accuracy of such a prediction (still figuring out how...) and thus evaluate the method (is this solution OK for this application?). However, I still want to do a simulation to illustrate the situation, and so I ask, what simulation software to use? I've thought about KSP with Realism Overhaul, but it's not exactly reputable as a simulator... I've also thought of Orbiter, but it also doesn't use advanced simulation. I've been researching a little bit and found that there are some serious simulators out there: STK, FreeFlyer, and GMAT. Would these be of any use? Finally, My plan is somewhat as follows, any help is appreciated! Get data (from reputable sources) about launch vehicles (basic capabilities only), GPS satellites (and decide which), and celestial bodies (Earth, Moon) Calculate Lunar GPS constellation requirements (least number of orbits? At what inclinations? Number of satellites per orbit? Position delay between them?) Calculate best transfer orbits (best initial parking orbit. Best launch center (does it matter?)) Calculate margin of error (HOW?) Calculate GPS accuracy and limitations (HOW?) Simulate predicted orbits, analyse. Conclude considering everything explored above. Of course, I'm not asking to crowdsource my project, but any advice or opinion whatsoever is helpful. I might even add you (as a community) to the acknowledgements!

We should definitely put anyone willing to help in the doc, but they need to be active and engaged, otherwise it~s just a waste of everything. I mean, this thread should have 2 pages of postings per day for a project like this! Right now we're getting 4 posts a day (give or take), and usually from the same people.

Whatever! Let's focus on the cubesat for now shall we? I feel I'm the only one doing anything concrete...

More time for us!

MrZayas, we're just doing a simulated moon/mars gravity in LEO because an actual moon mission would be excessive for our scale. However, since 2017 is somewhat far off, we might take that opportunity for a moon mission. I did link a $3M NASA prize for an independent cubesat missio to the moon. That's quite an incentive. But for that, I'm afraid, we'd need to speed up this first missio as it's not seeming to be becoming real anytime soon...

Well, I just added a lot of stuff in the doc, what do you guys think? And I found more info on cameras, written there under "camera", sorry if it looks messy. Remember people, engineering is done by numbers, if you don't know the numbers, that's no excuse to not start an analysis, estimate, and if in emergency, guess, but ANALYSE WITH NUMBERS.

Dharak1, that's why I created the google doc, so we can get everything discussed in the last 139 pages in one place. Do you remember in what page they said those things? Also, I found a company that sells cubesat-specific solar panels, some with magnetorquers embedded. Here's the doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jR2B_M67cITTBtV_PDMoioVQp3bnCTR85ecQeVKmpWI/edit?usp=sharing If you'd like to be able to have full edit powers PM me.

I did a very bad sketch: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Vyv-knZjtIIsBwNBIp6lS4198OBx4yRtoidhKEPYVVo/edit?usp=sharing And noticed there's a lot of dead space. Also there's a lot of moving parts and liabilities for the mission, we should really simplify them. That is a cross section, but there's no 3D so it could very well be completely unrepresentative of the real thing. Finally, no measurements, so everything may be wrong entirely. This is just to kick into gear the actual design process. EDIT: For example, I just made the experiments opossite to each other, symentrically, thus eliminating the need of a counterweight. We need these ideas flowing people!.

You just went fetch 2 experiments that prove ours useless (Columbia moss and ISS Gravi 2 seedlings), so we just keep suggesting and you keep disproving them in trial-and-error until some day we get it? How about you just tell us an experiment that you would find interesting and novel and just be constructive? This is brainstorming, not even a mission plan is up for review, so yours is a little premature to say the least. You want some objectives? Let's see a few that I thought went without saying: Acquire the know-how to build a satellite that can: Survive space launch conditions Survive and be operational in LEO for a period of 3 weeks. Create functional logistics for a team of international members to contribute to the creation and operation of the mission. Be able to construct a functional satellite out of off-the-shelf electronics without professional assistance. Create a global network (remember the international part?) that can track the satellite around it's orbit. Let this network be mainly of amateur radio operators, again to acquire the know-how of orbital communication. Acquire the know-how to operate a satellite in orbit with respect to instrumentation and the inevitable problems. Be able to carry out a successful and fruitful mission to gain recognition to ease out the process of further missions. Nicholander, NERVAfan, astropapi1, can you list any more?

2/10 Shameless self-advertising Very succinct though, I appreciate that. So 3/10

Hey, Sky_walker. Since you know so much about space experiments would you mind suggesting one that's relevant and feasible for a first mission? This one is actually just something for us to get the know-how of these things, that's how well get experience in working with them and that's why we're not just suggesting an experiment for the ISS, we want to actually carry out a space mission. And about the PR stunt, SQUAD and KSP will have nothing to do with this. We're just using this knowledgeable and enthusiastic community (compared to others) to bring an international team of hobbyists together and do something amazing. If we'll ever succeed or be meaningful to space exploration, I don't know, but we're sure going to do our best. I don't mind your tone as long as you're helpful, so are you going to help?

Here, I've created a google doc to get our ideas down, the link allows commenting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jR2B_M67cITTBtV_PDMoioVQp3bnCTR85ecQeVKmpWI/edit?usp=sharing This is by no way final, ANY suggestions are welcome!

Sorry, wrong data, here's a recalculation: The divergence in the phytoagar (thanks NERVAfan) would be of 0.392 m/s^2 while the maximum divergence on Earth is of 0.0698 m/s^2, maximum (between peak of Nevado Huascaran and surface of Arctic Ocean). Still that's more than 5 times the divergence! And while I don't know the physics of it (does anyone here?) the difference between center and sides of the petri dish. Also, less than 5 mm? Any biologist here to confirm this is possible?

My issue with the experiment in a 1U cubesat is that the divergences in g-forces experienced will vary greatly with very little change in position. For instance, using that calculator, and assuming the moss grows on a petri dish that has, say, 5 mm of "dirt" (I know it won't be actual dirt but I forget the name of the gel) The difference between the top (radius 0.045 m) and the bottom (0.05 m) is between 0.34 and 0.38 respectively. The divergence is then of 0.04 g, or 0.392 m/s^2. In comparison the variation of gravity on Earth is at most 0.052 m/s^2 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_of_Earth don't judge me). Is this acceptable? I wouldn't think so. Added to that, the fact that the centripetal force will be circular, a flat petri dish will have even greater variances between its center and its sides, as well as the direction being crooked. A solution would be to have a curved petri dish, which I think is feasible, but we'd have to have it custom made. On the other hand, if it is custom made we can add stuff like passive temperature control systems and sealing it against vacuum with everything already inside. A solution to both these problems would be using a larger cubesat (2U or 3U, maybe even more), but that'd be expensive and wasting resources (unless we made it do many trials at once, since it's bigger anyways). Another would be a deployable counterweigh, which could be streched as far as we need it to. I don't see, however, that working. Can anyone do some math on the rotation of a cubesat with strings attached to a weigh?

How can we do both Mars and Moon gravities in a 1U cubesat, though? Any tiny change in position, curvature of petri dishes, and rotation speed will make huge differences in artificial gravity at that small scale.

Hey xenomorph555, I'm glad you joined us! In what comes to progress, we've bounced ideas back and forth and have generally agreed that for a first mission (emphasis on first) will be a 1U cubesat spinning for 3 weeks growing moss in simulated Moon and/or Mars gravity. Details are vague (much more than I'd like, let's get a shared google doc up!) Concrete progress? None at all (to be fair though, there's a mod out there for KSP with 1U cubesats, marketting I guess?)

Sorry, make that 4 books, here's his page: http://www.oreilly.com/pub/au/4997 Someone willing to buy it? (and yeah, we need to get building soon, or at least designing)

Well, here's some resources I gathered: NASA's cubesat launch initiative ("free launch" for educational purposes): http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative.html NASA's interplanetary cubesat challenge (3 million dollars prize for lunar orbit mission, guess what we're going for next!): http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/interplanetary-cubesat-challenge/ Project Calliope (extensively documented DIY cubesat project + resources to help people who want to do cubesats): http://projectcalliope.com/ This dude wrote 3 books on the subject,they seem very clear and conscise! "DIY Satellite Platforms" (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021605.do); "Surviving Orbit the DIY Way" (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021612.do); and "DIY Instruments for Amateur Space" (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021629.do) Cubesat solar panels + magnetotorque (link for 1U): http://www.clyde-space.com/cubesat_shop/solar_panels/1u_solar_panels/53_1u-side-solar-panel-w-mtq Arduino or Rasberry Pi? (cellphones are horrible for our purposes): http://readwrite.com/2014/05/07/arduino-vs-raspberry-pi-projects-diy-platform General info on cubesats: http://makezine.com/2014/04/11/your-own-satellite-7-things-to-know-before-you-go/ Camera (GoPro alternative): http://replayxd.com/cameras/replay-xd1080-camera/ How to do microscope/HD camera double-purpose camera? And for fun, Akin's laws: http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html

Using that spin calculator, NERVAfan, any small change in distance will dramatically change the gravity. How are we going to account for that if the top of the petri dish has a different gravity than the bottom? And more at the sides than the center? So a super thin, curved petri dish maybe? EDIT: I guess what I'm saying is: 22 (following Akin's laws). When in doubt, document.

Well, the first post was about making a community cubesat program. That is, we start small (still as big as we can) and work towards the "ultimate mission" (which is what the poll was for). So the ultimate mission will be the Phobos landing. Until then, however, we're starting with a LEO cubesat with an actual scientific experiment so we can make the most out of it AND maybe hitch a free ride from NASA, cutting ~$60k from the costs. Clear now? PS: K^2, please do update the first post with this information, maybe even delete the poll, or maybe start a new thread only for this first mission! That'd clear up confusion.

So the petri dish will be watered and sugar-ed in advance, and we hope it survives the cold void of space for the two weeks it'll be up there? Wouldn't that hinder growth (another variable, making the experiment less scientific)? I'm thinking at least a pressurized petri dish with regular air. That solution would still be light and small. And Nicholander, I asked a bunch of questions about the design of the cubesat which I'm not going to copy over again. If this is for real then we can't stay in estimations. For example, if it's a 1U cubesat then it'd need to be spinning REALLY fast. Also, are we testing for Mars and Moon gravity? How can we do that? I hope I sound constructive, because I'm afraid this project will never leave paper. Hell, it might never even get written down on a paper. Sorry again for my tone, I just really want this to happen...

Oooooh... Sorry, then. So it's a more respectable version of: Yadayada blabla something test test ---.-D_bAIFbwiuefb O_O lel fillertextfillertext etc ? The more you know, I guess! Still, anyone to answer my questions?

ALSO! Why is the website in Latin??!! Like, really? Are we expected to be able to read it? (EDIT: in "project documents" and "recent updates")