KSP Community CubeSat

[Aghanim]

That would take at least 75% of the module for a 10 litre and 50% for 5 litre. Kinda throwin' number out of my hat, but I think they are accurate from my experience in dive bottle(really usefull on a space launch).

The problem, is how we will build a bottle sized for the 1U, or 2U and 3U.

And don't expect anything more than an 1U sat.

Does someone know if plastic bottle, with 5 bars can survive in space ? Cuz that's easy to model with a 3D printer.

Quick calculation: It needs to survive 500 kN/m², as there isn't any atmosphere to push the bottle inward. I suggest we try to use chemical approaches, like car airbag, or if its banned from rocket launch, baking soda and vinegar

I'm out. Its 22:45 here, and I'm so sleepy and tomorrow I have school. The only thing keeping me from sleeping is that I need to do my homework

[Nicholander]

Uh, I don't think any one has even tried ​beaming electricity with microwaves or lasers, and you want us to do it in space?

[N_las]

What if we send two cubesats? One would be just in charge of generating electricity and beaming it to the other one in the form of microwaves or lasers. The other would have a receiving dish thing, electric propulsion, and all the science. The first one would also act as a communication relay.

Just food for thought I guess.

What if we add a third cubesat with an onboard AI. It could bake muffins using the microwaves of the energy transfer between the first two cubesats. If we sell those muffins to the iss astronauts, we could even make a profit.

[AngelLestat]

I did some math on the tether. A 10cm x 10cm cross sectional area will generate 18μN of drag (ballistic model) and up to 7.8mA of current at 300km. (3x10^-11kg/m³) At field strength of 40μT, which is pretty typical near Earth surface, that's just 0.3μN per meter of tether. So the tether would have to be at least 60 meters long just to compensate for the drag of the cubesat itself. And it will generate its own drag as well. The tidal force is barely sufficient at these scales as well.

Tethered electromagnetic drive is obviously a workable principle based on these numbers, but not for a cubesat. You need a significantly larger satellite to do a good demo of it.

Pity. It would have been a great project. But there are some other propulsion methods that can be looked into.

http://enu.kz/repository/2010/AIAA-2010-8844.pdf

How this paper shows, you can have 1600 meters of aluminum tether just using 0,58kg of mass. This count as propulsion system, gravity gradient and energy harvesting.

This produce 50% more energy than cover the 6 sides of the cubesat with PV (with similar weight).

It can deorbiting in just 16 days, or you can use it to raise your orbit as well.

You end with a 16 days cycle, because as your orbit altitude is reduced, then you harvest more energy with can be used to propulsion and to maintain your altitude.

Also it would be advisable to not had a huge lifespam mission, because this mean that we can use cheap parts and the mission risk decrease.

For example we can use smartphones which contain highly advanced technologies and incorporate several key features that are integral to a satellite – such as cameras, radio links, accelerometers, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope and high performance computer processors – almost everything a spacecraft needs.

Your 60 meters example are sell (similar dimensions) as deorbiting modules for 1U or 3U, they weight 80g

http://www.tethers.com/SpecSheets/Brochure_TermTape.pdf

We can get also the software to simul our manuvers:

http://www.tethers.com/TetherSim.html

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

I guess everyone needs to understand that if we had a camera, needs to be no more than 1 or 2 mpixel. Higher resolution --> higher CCD power consumption --> more data to transmit --> more power consumption.

now remember that a cubesat can not harvester a lot of energy. If you are lucky you can only transmit for 1 to 10 min by day. With a really low bandwidth.

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

Of course there is not!! If we found consensus in just 3 days, its mean that we are doing something wrong.

Edited July 16, 2014 by AngelLestat

[Error404brain]

We are going to do a KickStarter, and as CAT shows you, it's possible KickStart CubeSats which are bigger then 1U.

Don't want to take the job of the ESA fan, but they got an university behind them.

If we can build a void resistant small container, it would be easy, even in an 1U. We just need a small, inside camera, a smartphone and an antenna (I don't count the kerbal toothpick flag on it but).

Some Iphone can do the job.

OOOOOO

OATTBBO

OATSBBO

OOOOOO

A being the antenna, T the bottle, S the phone and B the inflatable part.

Don't point the smartphone to space, protect him, one side with the bottle, the other one by the inflatable, the camera on it looking inside the inflatable (who might have a window for space photo).

Advantages :

1) we don't need spacegrade processor.

2) we don't need space grade camera

3)possible in an 1U

[Aghanim]

Technically, energy transmission is pos... wait, no. You really don't want to waste that 16 watt. Solar power isn't that much.

[Nicholander]

LOL, we could sell them to space aliens too!

But seriously, for our first mission we can pretty much only send up one CubeSat.

[FCDetonados]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/image.php?u=111359&dateline=1403468348

[Error404brain]

http://enu.kz/repository/2010/AIAA-2010-8844.pdf

How this paper shows, you can have 1600 meters of aluminum tether just using 0,58kg of mass. This count as propulsion system, gravity gradient and energy harvesting.

This produce 50% more energy than cover the 6 sides of the cubesat with PV (with similar weight).

It can deorbiting in just 16 days, or you can use it to raise your orbit as well.

You end with a 16 days cycle, because as your orbit altitude is reduced, then you harvest more energy with can be used to propulsion and to maintain your altitude.

Also it would be advisable to not had a huge lifespam mission, because this mean that we can use cheap parts and the mission risk decrease.

For example we can use smartphones which contain highly advanced technologies and incorporate several key features that are integral to a satellite – such as cameras, radio links, accelerometers, magnetometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope and high performance computer processors – almost everything a spacecraft needs.

Your 60 meters example are sell (similar dimensions) as deorbiting modules for 1U or 3U, they weight 80g

http://www.tethers.com/SpecSheets/Brochure_TermTape.pdf

We can get also the software to simul our manuvers:

http://www.tethers.com/TetherSim.html

That sound awesome. Like really.

If we can do that, we should.

[Aethon]

We are going to do a KickStarter, and as CAT shows you, it's possible KickStart CubeSats which are bigger then 1U.

I'll say again. I think we are our own kickstart. The people in the world most likely to fund this, come here all the time. I don't know how kickstarter works and we may go that route, but I'm telling you we can raise a lot of money just from this community.

[Nicholander]

Don't want to take the job of the ESA fan, but they got an university behind them.

If we can build a void resistant small container, it would be easy, even in an 1U. We just need a small, inside camera, a smartphone and an antenna (I don't count the kerbal toothpick flag on it but).

Some Iphone can do the job.

OOOOOO

OATTBBO

OATSBBO

OOOOOO

A being the antenna, T the bottle, S the phone and B the inflatable part.

Don't point the smartphone to space, protect him, one side with the bottle, the other one by the inflatable, the camera on it looking inside the inflatable (who might have a window for space photo).

Advantages :

1) we don't need spacegrade processor.

2) we don't need space grade camera

3)possible in an 1U

Wait, so the whole CubeSat is pressurized? I mean, we could still have it be 1U, and the systems, computers, antennas, etc. be half of the CubeSat, and the other half be the inflatable section be the other half, with a compact camera. Though i don't know how easy it is to put the systems in a 5x10x10 space.

[PakledHostage]

Well then, that's much more than expected. Congratulations Making a transmitter that works fine at the range of 50 km is an achievement on it's own. Well done!

But yea - pointing at the target is a major challenge. Both: for receiver and transmitter.

We didn't make it. We assembled the radio gear from off the shelf hardware. The overall system involves significant amounts of custom hardware and software but the radio gear itself is off the shelf and it works over the range I mentioned above. Indeed the same radio system has been used in an earlier project by my friend who I worked with, to transmit sensor telemetry over even greater distances (over 100 km). The telemetry allowed us to accurately point the high gain yagi antenna and maintain an RF link over those distances.

And while I am beginning to sound like a broken record, my point from yesterday still stands: There are people on this forum who have the talent to make an idea like this actually come together. But the goals have to be realistic and significant logistical problems would have to be worked out before any of them would be willing to invest thousands of their dollars and thousands of hours of their free time in making it happen. Nothing is going to happen if we aim too high or have unrealistic ideas about the kinds of resources that we could draw on. But I don't doubt that a group of us could make this happen if we got organized. Sadly though, I believe that the non technical problems of financing, marketing, project management, etc are what would kill an endeavor such as this.

[Nicholander]

We didn't make it. We assembled the radio gear from off the shelf hardware. The overall system involves significant amounts of custom hardware and software but the radio gear itself is off the shelf and it works over the range I mentioned above. Indeed the same radio system has been used in an earlier project by my friend who I worked with, to transmit sensor telemetry over even greater distances (over 100 km). The telemetry allowed us to accurately point the high gain yagi antenna and maintain an RF link over those distances.

And while I am beginning to sound like a broken record, my point from yesterday still stands: There are people on this forum who have the talent to make an idea like this actually come together. But the goals have to be realistic and significant logistical problems would have to be worked out before any of them would be willing to invest thousands of their dollars and thousands of hours of their free time in making it happen. Nothing is going to happen if we aim too high or have unrealistic ideas about the kinds of resources that we could draw on. But I don't doubt that a group of us could make this happen if we got organized. Sadly though, I believe that the non technical problems of financing, marketing, project management, etc are what would kill an endeavor such as this.

We need to get this more formal and organized, but thay will take a bit of time.

[Nicholander]

I'll say again. I think we are our own kickstart. The people in the world most likely to fund this, come here all the time. I don't know how kickstarter works and we may go that route, but I'm telling you we can raise a lot of money just from this community.

And if we actually do a KickStarter, then not only will the people on the forum back it and give money, it will be more well known since KickStarter is very well known and popular, so other people will find out about it more easily, and might back and support it.

[Drunken Hobo]

Crowdfunding a CubeSat to get in to a low Earth orbit would be an amazing achievement for the KSP community.

Soft-landing a CubeSat on Phobos - a feat that has never been done before - is complete fantasy. Has any CubeSat ever even left Earth orbit?

I appreciate people may be excited at the idea, but they're getting way ahead of themselves. Beamed power, ion drives, inflatable modules etc. it's all just fantasy. If you want to have any chance of success, be realistic. I don't think people appreciate just how much an achievement a few LEO pictures of Earth would be.

[notfruit]

I even drew a picture in paint

edit: Just realized the trajectory would probably not be a single relatively short burn but a spiral.

Edited July 16, 2014 by notfruit

[Nicholander]

Drunken Hobo, you say that inflatables are fantasy? I mean seriously, it's not a new propulsion system, it doesn't require any expensive communications systems, and it can fit in a 1U CubeSat!

[Nicholander]

notfruit, I don't think transmitting power is possible over that long distances, and it hasn't even been done on Earth!

[Kryten]

Has any CubeSat ever even left Earth orbit?

Nope. One small (20kg) student-built sat has entered heliocentric orbit, but it failed almost immediately afterwards.

[PakledHostage]

Drunken Hobo, you say that inflatables are fantasy? I mean seriously, it's not a new propulsion system, it doesn't require any expensive communications systems, and it can fit in a 1U CubeSat!

A party balloon and a CO₂ cartridge also fit in a cubesat but what's the point? If this project is ever going to happen, it needs realistic and achievable goals and it needs an emotional "hook" that will get people excited enough to support it. PM me when you've got that organized and I'll see what I can do to help out.

[Nicholander]

Did you even look at what Error404brain said? By inflatable, we mean a pressurized area that can expand and we can study plants in it. Not a frickin party balloon.

[PakledHostage]

Did you even look at what Error404brain said? By inflatable, we mean a pressurized area that can expand and we can study plants in it. Not a frickin party balloon.

Field goal!

[Error404brain]

"Wait, so the whole CubeSat is pressurized?"

The phone is in space. But it's shielded by the bottle and the inflatable module.

A coke bottle can reist up to 1200 pascal according the internet.

So. That' not the problem. we can do it up to 5 bars without problem. with an Effectrive volume of 0.2 litre we can do it.

[Nicholander]

Oh. Derp. It's Just that I thought you where saying that the whole CubeSat would be pressurized. Sorry. And also, how much will the inflaitable expand?

[Creature]

As far as I know - it won't pass through the tests. No living thing is allowed on a launch vehicles. There are very strict rules about contamination with biological matter.

As I said before - read the Ariane 5 user manual in my footer. It's interesting from a KSP rocket builder perspective, but also contains tons of info about qualification tests satellites need to pass before getting on a launch vehicle.

Biological payload is well within possibilities and there was even GeneSat-1 that did such thing with a cubesat. It did cost quite a bit and was otherwise one of the most sophisticated ones but it's possible. Although the launch provider probably wants certain ISO standards met from whoever wants to bring bugs in a can on their rocket. So by possible I mean possible in general for a real research team, not for us though.

All in all I'd say this thread is very educational for all who want to face real engineering challenges. We've gone from an "easy Phobos landing" to a "floating bucket in LEO that could maybe carry a camera or something."

Really it doesn't matter what the satellite does as long as it does something funky or something useful. One problem is that we don't have any tech to demonstrate. If someone here has special skills to build something they think could be useful in future cubesat missions, speak up now. Otherwise we have nothing on that front so either find something easy to measure or test that hasn't been measured or tested before or think of something cool. In case 1 we might hitch a free ride due to scientifical utility, in case 2 we might raise enough money to pay for a launch.

But that aside the real and massive and biggest challenge here is doing it as an internet community with people all over the world. And just saying we'll assemble in in K^2's garage isn't the answer here. Anyone who's willing to relocate to where ever he lives, speak up now. Realize that this isn't a model airplane and you don't just put it together over a weekend. You really do have to move physically to the assembly location and it does take more than one person to do it in any reasonable time. I don't know what K^2's real skills are but I'm assuming he or she is a physicist or something of that sort so if he's really good and motivated he could maybe assemble it all by himself given enough time. But I wouldn't build a community project based on one person doing all the work while the rest of us shout instructions over the internet.

Also I wouldn't be surprised if the more administrative people at SQUAD are already looking at this thread with a finger on the trigger to stop the whole process. It's one thing to do something small as a fan work but if this project is trying to be serious, we're talking about raising possibly a hundred thousand dollars or even more by using their IP as a promoting tool. They might want to say something about that.

And I don't mean to be negative here but I am assuming that people who say they're serious about this really are serious about this and even some sort of answers to these things should be first on the list. Once you have the team together you can think about what sort of skillset they have and what they could realistically accomplish. You can't build the mission if you don't have the engineers.