Femtosats

[steve58]

Ha, anyone that plays KSP has been launching these for years 

 

Quote

First launched in 2003, CubeSats have made quite an impact on space exploration with universities, enthusiasts, and others deploying the small and affordable satellites. Now, a team of researchers at Arizona State University are developing FemtoSats, an even smaller satellite that is easier and less expensive to launch.

The FemtoSat, also known as SunCubes, were developed by Professor Jekan Thangavelautham from ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration. The cubes are amazingly small and light, measuring a mere 1.1 inches and weighing only 1.2 ounces. These FemtoSats are significantly smaller than their CubeSat counterparts, which are 4.3 inches long and 2.9 lbs in weight.

Related: NASA and Japan just released over 2.95 million thermal satellite photos of Earth, for free

The FemtoSats are not only small and easy to deploy, they are also affordable when compared to the CubeSat, which costs up to $50,000 to prepare for launch and $100,000 to launch into orbit. According to the Arizona State team, each FemtoSat will cost $3,000 to deliver into a lower Earth orbit, and, if desired, $1,000 to send to the International Space Station.

The FemtoSat will be deployed using a CubeSat equipped with a spring that will shoot the FemtoSat out into space. Approximately 27 FemtoSats can be released by a single deployer. This will cut down on launch costs, allowing the FemtoSats to piggyback on existing CubeSat missions.

The Arizona researchers hope their FemtoSats will make it possible for the hobbyists, students, and other enthusiasts to explore space. "By reducing the launch cost, it is hoped a wider community of educators, researchers, and hobbyists can develop their own spacecraft," said the team. "The standard is targeted towards personal, scientific, private, and government payloads."

What would you do with your own personal satellite?

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/04/18/say-hello-to-femtosats-tiny-new-satellites-that-could-democratize-space.html?intcmp=hpff

 

 

Edited April 18, 2016 by steve58

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, steve58 said:

Ha, anyone that plays KSP has been launching these for years 

The smallest probe core in KSP, the OKTO2, is about 25 inches across, 6 times as wide as a cubesat and 23 times as wide as a femtosat. Its mass is 40 kg, about 30 times a femtosat. I don't think most people are playing with mods that provide parts that small.

[PB666]

5 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

The smallest probe core in KSP, the OKTO2, is about 25 inches across, 6 times as wide as a cubesat and 23 times as wide as a femtosat. Its mass is 40 kg, about 30 times a femtosat. I don't think most people are playing with mods that provide parts that small.

I made smaller cores, don't use them anymore (meh the MechJeb does the same). The irony is that I wasn't using them for cores. I need a smaller node starter and surface attachment, so a shrank the OKTO2 to 1/2 and 1/4.

But this actually proved to have some value because one of the things that you can do is to put a tiny core on a fuel lifter, in a station, you frequently want balance, but you can't get balance on side tanks unless you deliver two tanks.

The problem with KSP is putting two tall skinny tanks on a sz 1 docking port creates instability (you can fix this with addons EL) so replaced the sz 1 with sz2 and shorter tanks, And send them up in one launch, but at least one tank will not have a command module. So you simply put a small ockto somewhere on the tank, a solar panel, a couple of downgraded RCS tank and a 4 RCS thrusters around its CoG crossection, and you have a low dV ship.

So whats the logic here. The ship comes in and drops off the first tank, this one has the controller. Then the remnant is detached, the station then rotates 180, stops, you then release the second ship, it then scutes in with its RCS and docks leaving the 2nd stage drifting away. If that ship also has a controller, it can use any remaining fuel to deorbit, or it can shove itself into a recycling bin.

I have a whole set of parts that I made that take the place of stack starters

I have a flush mounting pipe anchor, also a 5-faced pipe started that flush mounts on the sixed face.

But the one thing that Mech Jeb and flush mouting stack starters don't have is a battery. So basically I am replace the core piece with 3 other pieces.

[KAL 9000]

You know, I have an idea for an even smaller satellite! The Super-Duper-Ultra-Teensy-Tiny-sat^TM! Or SDUTTsat for short. Basically, it's one of those millimeter-sized computer chips with a tiny solar panel and tiny antenna. Because the solar panel can't track the sun (way too small) and the best attitude for catching sunlight changes along the orbit, the SDUTTsat would be released spinning at ~60 RPM so it would never face away from the sun for more than half a second. This would also gyro-stabilize the SDUTTsat, because it's too small for reaction wheels and/or RCS.

Not sure what its use would be, though.

[Kryten]

2 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

You know, I have an idea for an even smaller satellite! The Super-Duper-Ultra-Teensy-Tiny-sat^TM! Or SDUTTsat for short. Basically, it's one of those millimeter-sized computer chips with a tiny solar panel and tiny antenna. Because the solar panel can't track the sun (way too small) and the best attitude for catching sunlight changes along the orbit, the SDUTTsat would be released spinning at ~60 RPM so it would never face away from the sun for more than half a second. This would also gyro-stabilize the SDUTTsat, because it's too small for reaction wheels and/or RCS.

Not sure what its use would be, though.

Something very similar to that has actually been tried, but the deployment sat failed. A reflight is set to go up sometime this year.

[KAL 9000]

4 minutes ago, Kryten said:

Something very similar to that has actually been tried, but the deployment sat failed. A reflight is set to go up sometime this year.

Cool (not that it failed). I hope the deployment sat works this time around.

[todofwar]

Minor pet peave: using prefixes that make no damn sense. Unless they are planning on building them out of quarks they won't be femtosats. Anyway, I do worry about the problem of loading too many of these things into orbit. Would hate for one to accidentally hit the ISS or something. I trust the powers that be to try and have safeguards, but I also trust the powers that be to screw up. 

[fredinno]

5 hours ago, todofwar said:

Minor pet peave: using prefixes that make no damn sense. Unless they are planning on building them out of quarks they won't be femtosats. Anyway, I do worry about the problem of loading too many of these things into orbit. Would hate for one to accidentally hit the ISS or something. I trust the powers that be to try and have safeguards, but I also trust the powers that be to screw up. 

Femto- is a even smaller prefix unit than nano- .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femto-

On 4/18/2016 at 6:45 AM, steve58 said:

Ha, anyone that plays KSP has been launching these for years 

 

 

I wonder, how are 1 ounce satellites supposed to be useful? Can you put an instrument in space smaller than 1 ounce?

Is a useful femtosat feasable?

[todofwar]

2 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Femto- is a even smaller prefix unit than nano- .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femto-

 

That's what I meant, atomic bonds are on the scale of Angstroms, or 0.1 nm. So technically, shooting H2 out of your rocket may count as a "femtosat" but even really sophisticated molecular sattelites count as "nanosats". A femtosat would involve some kind of subatomic assembly that's probably impossible.

[Kryten]

Just now, todofwar said:

That's what I meant, atomic bonds are on the scale of Angstroms, or 0.1 nm. So technically, shooting H2 out of your rocket may count as a "femtosat" but even really sophisticated molecular sattelites count as "nanosats". A femtosat would involve some kind of subatomic assembly that's probably impossible.

It originated because the term 'microsattelite' was used to refer to a growing field of small sats in 90s. The term was standardised by analysts to mean 100-10kg sats, and so they started using the SI prefixes to refer to smaller sat classes as they appeared.

[todofwar]

Just now, Kryten said:

It originated because the term 'microsattelite' was used to refer to a growing field of small sats in 90s. The term was standardised by analysts to mean 100-10kg sats, and so they started using the SI prefixes to refer to smaller sat classes as they appeared.

Oh I know, and I really don't mind that much. It's just a minor pet peeve of mine. Anyway, what are the transmission capabilities of these things? Would they be able to transmit to the surface or would they require a relay network? 

[Kryten]

To the surface, albeit with pretty low data rates.

[RainDreamer]

That seems useful for establishing a communication line around a small planet then, maybe around the moon!

[kerbiloid]

Super-tiny sats can inherit a common name: "Kesslersat".
Launch a million of them at once and gain the right to give a name for a new Earth particle ring.

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

I wonder, how are 1 ounce satellites supposed to be useful? Can you put an instrument in space smaller than 1 ounce?

Of course. Then even can be equipped with a re-entry crewed module for two cockroaches.

[fredinno]

13 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

That seems useful for establishing a communication line around a small planet then, maybe around the moon!

And have Kessler Syndrome at pretty much the same time
 

Femtosats right now are pretty much gimmicks.

[wumpus]

50 minutes ago, fredinno said:

And have Kessler Syndrome at pretty much the same time
 

Femtosats right now are pretty much gimmicks.

Also "hello world" projects for future satellite designers.  When Orbcomm launched a bunch of satellites (the one the Falcon9 landed first), there was at least one "ballast satellite".  Since nobody is making off-the-shelf satellites that fill all the cargo, there is often room for deadheading.

Weirdly, you could probably make a pretty good communication system with nothing but femtosats (pretty much a packet-switching network similar to the original internet).  The catch is, such a system would never play well with others (no avoidance systems means loosing them low enough for an early death, and you would need thousands of them).  I also have to wonder how you send such a system up: My guess is that you randomly toss them out, spin stablize them, then light a solid rocket to get them to go to different orbits.  Had Sputnik happened in 2007, we might be communicating with such a system.  Not a chance for such a thing nowadays.

[RainDreamer]

This just reminds me of my dandelion design in ksp, just a bunch of small satellites (with purely a solar panel, antenna and probe core) surrounding a central core (the ksp sputnik!) attached by a powered up decoupler. When I need a cheap way to establish communication with a new planet, I just sent the whole thing over, spin it, and launch all the "seeds". Eventually I end up with a rudimentary network that I can use to build better one.