KSP Community CubeSat

[Mazon Del]

Incidently I just had the best (worst) idea ever. What we should do for the growth trays is to provide a shape for the moss to cover...a shape much like a Kerbal's head...in fact, just a Kerbal's head. Kerbal Chia Pet In Space!

A motor itself does not add too much complexity, however it will take some money to make a spaceworthy motor. Besides, we are going to need some sort of actuator to some extent as it is for the latch to open the first time. We most certainly do not want to try and have the panels spring loaded in the carrier. In fact, I am reasonably sure (I should reread that document someone had posted) that you are not allowed to do that. Strictly speaking if we wanted to, we could have them attach closed with a plastic connector of some sort, then when the system goes online it activates a heater that melts the plastic enough for the springs to open it up. But this lends itself towards single mode failures and unpredictability of its own.

[Nicholander]

Like the idea of many members working separately and keeping the momentum going, but this ( sorry Nicholander ) could take years.

I remain confident however, that this will be our logo in space, someday.

Well, like I posted a few times earlier, we should get this more organized, formal, and efficient, or, as you said, it would take years. It took us about a month to even decide what our CubeSat will do, so we need to do better then that. How about we make a website or something, since because we're not a university or a group of engineers working for a small country, we can't very easily communicate ideas and such as quickly, but this can be done, but some formalization and organization does seem to be necessary for this to not take years.

[ChrisWill]

It took us about a month to even decide what our CubeSat will do, so we need to do better then that.

What have we decided on? Also I think we need a group of core people to work on this and make decisions. It can still be largely open source but have a group of people that just push it forward in a timely matter.

[Mazon Del]

Maybe we could ask SQUAD to make a science forum section (like "The Science Labs") devoted to just the cubesat. We can have a main thread (maybe just shove this one there) where people can spout whatever, and then have several fixed threads "Biocontainer -Air", "Biocontainer - Heat", "Solar Panels", etc and only add new threads to the area for unique topics. So basically the subforum would be locked down like things are in the Announcements section. That way we keep things within KSP, but it allows us to more easily coordinate given tasks. Having them all on this one thread does cause issues, especially if you have to read back through several pages of unrelated information.

SQUAD Mods, thoughts?

[Mazon Del]

What have we decided on? Also I think we need a group of core people to work on this and make decisions. It can still be largely open source but have a group of people that just push it forward in a timely matter.

Right now it seems like the majority of people are in on the idea of a low-gravity (perhaps 0.5Gs) plant growth experiment since this area is largely unexplored in science. They have data for 0G growth and 1+. But there is almost none on 0>?>1.

We would spin the craft to provide some out-is-down gravity.

Though of course if it looks like we cannot do this (too complex, unable to fit in the given space, etc) we could change it up.

Additionally, I am in favor of making it mostly open source as a system, others might want to perform their own bio experiments and if we can provide a flight-proven design then they might have use for it.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Mazon Del

[Aethon]

...a shape much like a Kerbal's head...in fact, just a Kerbal's head. Kerbal Chia Pet In Space!

Lol (facepalm) Ch ch ch Chia might sponsor if we use some of their seed. (re-facepalm, looks around uncomfortably).

[Nicholander]

I agree with Mazon Del, we should make it open source, and the only reason that we sometimes get people posting about stuff without reading the discussion is that there's no summary of what we've agreed upon during the 80+ page discussion.

[dharak1]

About air delivery to the plants. Could we use something like a fishtank Co2 addition system? In fish tanks you typically have to put Co2 into the environment manually with little canisters so the plants don't suffocate themselves. If we did aquatic plants we could use something like this just without the fish. I'm sure we would be able to adapt one for air as well.

[Nicholander]

dharak1, I believe we'll only be able to put some moss and bacteria on the CubeSat.

[dharak1]

I know, I'm just suggesting how we can stop the plants from suffocating themselves by filling the area with oxygen. Water would probably be too heavy.

[Bioman222]

We could land the cube sat beside this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_monolith

[Mazon Del]

It could be possible to repurpose such a system if it can work with air as opposed to water. Additionaly, we'd need to know how pressurized those containers are, anything above 1.2 atmospheres is prohibited.

[dharak1]

I just did some messing around with one and it is for sure above 1.2 ATMs

[Mazon Del]

In the end we are likely going to end up just having a container of CO2 on board, but at 1.2 ATMs it feels like such a waste of space.

With just a little bit of research it seems that we COULD make (or possibly buy, I am at work so I can't do a full search) CO2 generation system by having a container with water and yeast in it, as well as a control system for dispensing sugar. The yeast metabolizes the O2 and sugar, producing some CO2. Though exactly how much CO2 this can produce, and what our length of operations would be like with yet another consumable, I wouldn't know at this time. Incidentally, we would get a second experiment, how efficient is yeast in low-g?

It is possible that Luis will have information on a suitable CO2 source/converter. It would seem to be a relatively normal experiment to have plants in an enclosed environment. That said, they likely use just stored CO2 in refillable tanks, so this might not be useful. I'll check with him when I can.

[christok]

Maintaining CO2 concentration is easy. Just add more carbon-rich compost. Container gardens do not in fact kill themselves for lack of CO2 anyway. The problem is with maintaining pressure.

[Mazon Del]

Considering the size of the actual pressurized space, that shouldn't be too hard*.

*: It will likely be costly to get space rated sealants (non-outgassing).

[Nicholander]

The only water that would be on board that has anything to do with the plants is watering them. (The water won't float, as it's artificial gravity, though it will fall slower because partial gravity) And the pressurized area should be filled with CO2, though maybe we should add a little O2 because that's how it is on Earth, and the far future farms on the Moon and Mars will have some O2, because there's also Humans.

[Nicholander]

We could land the cube sat beside this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_monolith

This whole thing in summary: We're now at the point where our first mission will study how plants behave and act in partial-gravity conditions, because the CubeSat will spin, creating artificial gravity. It will also have a pressurized area where the plants (Moss) will be. The Phobos lander will be a later mission.

[K^2]

And the pressurized area should be filled with CO2

Bad idea. Pure CO2 is toxic to most modern plants. There are probably some algae that can process pure CO2, but not higher plants, which will be of interest here. The container needs to be filled with typical air-like mixture. Probably a bit on the humid side. We could run it a bit CO2-rich, but I don't know if that'd be most productive in terms of data utility. Running Earth-like CO2 concentrations will allow us both a better comparison to control on Earth and data closer to conditions in which someone might use plants for oxygen regeneration on an orbital station.

[Nicholander]

Well, like I then said after that, we should maybe change that to Earth like air, now make that "maybe" a certainly. I'm not an expert or that interested in biology, though our first mission should study it in partial-gravity conditions.

[Aethon]

Seems like a bunch of rocket guys, trying to wrap their heads around plant biology may be wasting time. We like rockets. We know rockets. Personally plant's in space is.. not that interesting, but I'm more than happy to go along with the consensus. A lot of talk about plants here lately and not much rocketing. Not complaining mind you, just making an observation.

[K^2]

Oh, we definitely need some bio experts on board for this. It's a big part of why I'm hesitant to settle on any particular design. I just don't know how much requirements can change after the bio expert comes in and says, "Well, this is a waste of time. Here is what you actually should do..."

[Mazon Del]

Exactly, Luis should be here next week and I am able to take next friday off (been staying after work to build up the hours) so I should be able to have some email back and forth as well as a face to face conversation with him.

[Nicholander]

Aethon: Well, as you know, we have Mazon Del on board, and he knows a plant guy and is a plant guy himself.

But, also, christok and K^2, how are you doing on the sim?

[K^2]

I found what I was looking for in terms of using constants of motion for central potential as the canonical coordinates of perturbed potential. I'm going to write a 2D proof of concept, verify it in Mathematica, and then make sure that it actually gives me better results than simply integrating coordinates.

By the way, just a reminder, all of the coputations should be done in double-precision.