Aghanim

This. All of those tracking problems is useless when we couldn't even launch at the right time

Well, we have reached page 36 and there still no consensus reached yet...

Of course. Everything always need a backup, even if we have a directional antenna and then a space debris hits our cubesat and throw it out of alignment, at least we still have the omni to correct it @Epic: Right!

@Error404brain: Pointing is hard. This is why I say omni antenna is a cheat, they doesn't need any pointing to be useful. But directional antenna needs pointing

http://web.archive.org/web/20140309023144/http://exa.ec/history.htm That was an interesting story...

Well, I stand corrected. But now, the discussion is going pretty much nowhere. We cannot even think of our main objective. Solar sail? No, the forces are too small. Tether? Same problem. Deorbit demo? Space navigation is an issue. Leaving Earth? More issues. Most of the easy thing has been taken by other crowdfunded cubesat. Doing a laser communication experiment, sending some data? Nope. Unless they can also receive the data by their own, it's probably will look like a scam. Sending KSP stuff to space? Why didn't we use high altitude balloon or sounding rocket? Doing SSTV? Sending out something space related might work, like that Portal SSTV transmission.

Well, if you want to push streaming to its limit... do SSTV. Its technically still streaming, but its so slow. And really? You are comparing an experimental real world propulsion tech with a theoretical research paper only drive And yes, I do know that space laser communication is still in experimental stage. But free space optical communication is already in commercial stage. Again, let me reiterate. The mass penalty is small. A green 5mW pointer only weighs at 138g. More weight saving can be achieved by removing the pen and using bare diode, driving it with a driver and modulator circuit, using the cubesat body as heatsink . We could probably spare some payload space for this. But... that 138g can be used for a more useful purpose! What? Actually, I don't know because the primary objective of this mission is not clear, yet

@Sky_walker: Does streaming for 1 minute and then stop doing that still counts as livestreaming? No one says that you need to do 24/7 livestream, yes? Again, the communication system is an issue. But probably laser comm will solve that. I say probably because it put a much more stricter limits on cubesat and ground station pointing accuracy, and the ability of both of them to track each other. Again, feasibility is a big issue, but even if the HD camera isn't there, the mass penalty of putting a laser diode and its driver in our cubesat isn't that much at all @Error404brain: Well, in LEO we have GPS. But that is still a problem, because pointing a radio, or in this case, a laser beam, the pointing system needs to be accurate enough so the tight beam could hit the receiver. Using radio, we can cheat and use omnidirectional antenna, but it spreads the radio wave everywhere, reducing the signal that will come to the receiver. But, what Sky_walker probably meant, is that we used to imagine about this cubesat going to Phobos. Obviously, there will be no GPS signal outside Earth's SOI, so another navigation method needs to be implemented.

Can HD webcam survive in space? If it's possible to do it, maybe we can livestream HD video from the cubesat and beam it down to the ground station by laser. With that amount of bandwidth available, probably we can make a gigapixel panorama by letting the cubesat moving around the Earth move the camera, and upload that to Gigapan

Isn't the plan for solar orbit involves getting a ride to GTO and then use the onboard BRFIT-3 ion thruster, using the moon and the earth as gravity slingshot target? Of course, communication and control are very very hard

I just realized my mistake now, for laser communication to be successful the cubesat and the receiver needs to cooperate, which means you are right. But is laser communication faster than radio signal? LLCD says yes, but we could not hope for that amazing performance

I slept, and then the thread size balloons... with heated discussion Well Phobos mission will have problems in antenna pointing, unless if you put a star tracker there. And then there still be transmit power issue So, I suggest a new mission: 2U to LEO, and try to do laser communication with it. Everyone that have good enough telescope could aim to that cubesat like we did to ISS, and attach a camera to there, decoding the flashes of laser light. Feasibility? Any LEO mission that this forum has concocted can have a several watt red laser diode without massive mass penalty, so consider this as the secondary objective Usefulness? If this succeed, we can have a faster downlink than radio, and energy saving too EDIT: I think the laser isn't powerful enough to be seen at Earth, and the telescope needs tracking capabilities too, which is hard

Is it possible to do a Phobos sample return-ish? Using BRFIT-3 and 2 kg propellant in a 10 kg cubesat, we could achieve 6.1 km/s delta V, allowing it to land ,grab a sample, and return it to Earth's orbit. I don't know if that is useful or not, or if it have enough TWR to even land

If the cubesat computer have a glitch in the main flight computer, how do it recover?

Please, don't use Photobucket again. It displays the bandwidth limit exceeded instead of the picture. Use imgur instead

Well if they have asked permission to Squad and get a explicit permission to do this, it's alright

Need urgent help with my other computer! My other computer, the powerful one with GTX 660 Ti in it, have some problems. Sometime, when I turn it on, the fan starts up and it turns itself off again. After unplugging the power cable and reconnecting it again, it starts up normally. I suspect the PSU is going bad, I'm using Thermaltake LT-700 EDIT: I have tried it on my old computer and the PSU and the PC starts normally. But in the new computer, I have removed the graphics card and it still do the same weird thing, so its not because the PSU is underpowered

Is it just me or when I see the title, I immediately think about the Orion Project instead of the real Orion spacecraft?

@revkev: Really? I prefer EEVblog rants over Tfoot, thanks

So, what space station will replace ISS?

At least this forum is much friendlier than most of the gaming forums up there, even if this place is populated by 13 year old they have good manner, unlike one of the youtube comment thread where someone make a joke about a $70k PC cannot run minecraft, and I suggested a better PC that is better than that and only costs $60k, and its my fault that I didn't pick up the joke earlier and I'm bashed. Or another youtube comment thread where someone is telling aluminium foil is not heat resistant, and someone refutes that point, and the OP replies to him with every profanity in this world and telling him that he is anti social Back to topic: In my country, there are no data cap unless you are using mobile internet, and usually its capped at 4 GB or so. Again, as everyone says, if possible, get a uncapped internet. However, if you cannot do that for some reason, you need to record your internet usage somehow. In my mobile internet, there is a meter indicating my remaining internet quota, but I don't know if your internet have it

A mass driver? Unfortunately its in the do not suggest list But there is a mod for that

At least if the DVI adapter successfully transform DVI signals into VGA, its good enough Question: I'm thinking about getting a graphics card that can be use as a drop-in replacement for my old Geforce 210, and I doesn't feel I want to change my PSU, as my brother will freak out if suddenly my PSU have a 600W rating because he thinks that it means the PC is always drawing 600W from the wall and he will argue with me about hibernation is the same as standby and consuming power Yes, I do know that this is not true. But because I don't want to always argue for power efficiency and stuff, this is necessary And I do have a PC with that 600W PSU, its my mother's work PC with GTX 660 Ti, as its the only descent gaming PC that we have

Or if it's capable of thrusting under on-rail warp

There is another very important issues on interstellar communication, and that is how do you point your transmitter to the correct location, like Earth http://news.discovery.com/space/project-icarus-interstellar-communications-120206.htm No one is seriously considering using omnidirectional antenna for interstellar communications, right?