KSP Community CubeSat

[ChrisWill]

Great stuff Mazon Del and yes endersmens is creating a website here.

[Endersmens]

Great stuff Mazon Del and yes endersmens is creating a website here.

Beat me to it.

I haven't had a lot of time lately, but work is being continued on it. It won't be forgotten.

EDIT: Also, ignore the "official project launch" date, I can't turn it off, so I just set it and forgot about it basically. I'll change it when we officially start. (Or have we officially launched the project?)

[Nicholander]

Awesome Mazon Del! Yeah, I think we should do that moss instead of the spirulina. Or, we can have half of the pressurized area have Physcomitrella Patens moss, and the other half have spirulina.

[Nicholander]

Uh... Please stay on topic...

Though, seriously, just get AdBlock!

[LvL]

SORRY! deleted it

[K^2]

Mazon Del, I didn't realize cellular information was useful. We have cellular biologists in spades at my old Uni. I'm a co-author with a professor who specifically specializes in cellular microscopy. I'll get some info on what we can use that's light and small.

for this method of growth the moss tends to burn oxygen and not carbon dioxide.

Naturally. But the fact that shaded growth is of interest is great insight. This presents additional opportunities. If O2 is going to prove limiting factor, we can probably split the chamber, and have a secondary growth exposed to light, just to provide the oxygen for primary experiment.

But it all depends on how long it'd take moss to burn through the supply. We should do some 1G runs planetside to establish how long moss can survive completely sealed with no sunlight, and how much we can extend this by having a split chamber. Anyone feels like growing some moss?

As we talked, Luis brought up something that I thought was a pretty excellent break for us if we decide to go with the moss route. As soon as we have a mockup growth chamber (sealed environment, dark, IR lighting, etc) he can provide me (for free) samples to begin growing in the controlled environment here on Earth for test purposes. The moment we begin performing tests like this, he can take that data to his contacts at NASA and believes strongly that he would be able to obtain funding to have at least one grad student working full time on engineering specific strains of the mosses in question for our experiment specifically. So we would be able to launch with multiple strains of heavily selected gravitometric responses (up, down, doesn't care). These strains would also have a measured history of how they normally perform in an Earth based gravity environment. These strains, the dishes, and other plant gear (phytoagar, sucrose, etc) would likely be able to be provided to the project free or at heavily discounted rates.

Excellent. And again, goes to above. We need someone to start experimenting with growing stuff.

Additionally, something that he brought up as an interesting experiment to try if we end up having the ability to do so, but is sort of on the low side of the list considering what could be the difficulties in doing so with a 1U cubesat. Venting the atmosphere, letting it sit for several days or so, then putting back in an atmosphere and moisture to see if the moss will continue to germinate.

Tricky, but since we probably want to have pressure control, both to be able to vent excess and to compensate for leaks, we should try for this.

This is something they can do at ISS, however, without any expensive equipment, so it's definitely a secondary experiment.

I'll work on getting a good sensor list and look into microscopy.

[Nicholander]

Als K^2, when are you going to update the first post? Yes, I've asked it before and you said yes, but I haven't seen it change since the last time I asked you it, which I THINK was 2 or 3 weeks ago.

[NERVAfan]

First off, we had asked him about what model species of moss was used as the model species. He provided me with three.

Arabidopsis Thaliana - Actual Model species, 2nd choice.

Physcomitrella Patens - Actual Model species, 1st choice.

Ceratodon Purpureus - On the verge of becoming a model species within the next several years, 3rd choice.

Arabidopsis thaliana is not a moss, it's a flowering plant in the mustard/cabbage family (Brassicaceae). It is also probably too large for a 1U cubesat (Wikipedia says "usually growing to 20-25 cm tall") if it has any time to grow.

Luis recommends that the experiment take place in a dark enclosed environment where we either use IR LEDs for light (we can remove the IR filter off a webcam or normal camera in order to see these wavelengths. It is a hack I've done before that makes for an interesting set of night vision cameras) as the infrared light is largely ignored by the plants, or we can turn on normal light whenever taking images. Leaving the growth chamber enclosed in darkness simplifies a lot for us as we no longer need to worry about the exposure to direct sunlight or hatch covers, etc.

Cool, if it can survive long enough in the dark.

One of the issues we had all been worried about was of the moss eating away the atmosphere and starving/poisoning itself to death. However, with the samples in question (they are quite small) with the volume that he showed me in the enclosed petri dishes (think maybe 1.5-2.0 times as long as a quarter and 5-10 mm thick) the sample has enough air to live and grow for 2-3 weeks. Given that our flight window is a somewhat unreliable 1-6 weeks and that we may have the sample dishes open to a common atmosphere of "large", we probably don't actually need to care about providing a system for controlling the air quality unless we really want to.

OK, that sounds promising.

Additionally through the use of a mesh netting referred to as a phytoagar keeping the samples moist will likely not be a problem as well. The phytoagar allows the free flow of air, but effectively prevents the passage of moisture. If the moss samples were to start with some water and the phytoagar started wet, we likely would not need to worry about watering the moss over our mission time. Providing sucrose to the moss in the required amounts for our mission time is similarly easy (just a matter of how much we stick on any dish). So really all we have to worry about for the most part is keeping the temperature stable to something roughly approximating room temperature.

Hmm, OK, the moss is sounding a lot more viable than I had expected.

Edited September 20, 2014 by NERVAfan
remove extra quoted text, added comments on conditions; survival time in the dark

[TheAwer]

This wouldn't be a cubesat, but it's certainly another possibility. Check it out.

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/september/nasa-launches-new-citizen-science-website-opens-challenge-to-participate-in/#.VB4Fl0tIiN4

[K^2]

Als K^2, when are you going to update the first post? Yes, I've asked it before and you said yes, but I haven't seen it change since the last time I asked you it, which I THINK was 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Heh. Just got my computer hooked up at the new place a couple of days ago. I was posting from the phone before then. I'll see if I have time to set it up today or tomorrow.

[Nicholander]

TheAwer, it's 124 pages of forum thread, so we've already decided what the CubeSat will do.

[worir4]

Why don't we give NASA a free version of KSP, then maybe they will let us have one for free?

[TheAwer]

TheAwer, it's 124 pages of forum thread, so we've already decided what the CubeSat will do.

I know, but I think this should also definitely be looked at. A free ride to mars with a 150kg payload and a $20,000 prize for just a written proposal sounds like it might be a lot more feasible than raising however many thousand for the cubesat launch.

Or it might not be. I'm not really the best person to be looking at this stuff. Someone please look into this!

[Nicholander]

That deal seems a bit too good to be true, and are you sure there's no strings attached?

[NERVAfan]

That deal seems a bit too good to be true, and are you sure there's no strings attached?

I don't think it's a "fly a payload" opportunity; it appears to be a contest for people to submit ideas for what kinds of payloads NASA could use to replace the balance masses.

[TythosEternal]

I don't think it's a "fly a payload" opportunity; it appears to be a contest for people to submit ideas for what kinds of payloads NASA could use to replace the balance masses.

TheAwer, you beat me to this!

However, despite the common thread of "how to get a free ride to mars," I'm spinning this off into its own thread. They are independent projects.

[Nicholander]

What do you mean? You've just posted on this thread for the first time!

[NERVAfan]

OK so if we're going with moss instead of Spirulina....

...where would we get samples of this moss? It would make sense to grow it on Earth first in a similar environment... what will the moss-containing part of the cubesat be like? How much space is left over after the electronics and insulation etc.?

[LvL]

we need to go back to them problems with the moss's environment if we aren't using spirulina

[Nicholander]

Yeah, but we'll probably need some help from Mazon Del for that.

[TheFlyingPigs]

I'm trying to read the 125 pages of text here 😋 but if there's anything you need PM me. I am over 9000 km (lol) away from my computer and surviving with my ipad. BTW If you want me to make a vid, PM me your Email and we will keep in touch (I don't wanna show my email publicly)

[Mazon Del]

OK so if we're going with moss instead of Spirulina....

...where would we get samples of this moss? It would make sense to grow it on Earth first in a similar environment... what will the moss-containing part of the cubesat be like? How much space is left over after the electronics and insulation etc.?

Samples of the moss can be obtained cheaply (maybe a couple dollars for the full loadout of moss) or free from my contact Professor Vidali, as can the sample container dishes and whatnot. One thing he is excited about is that in order to fit as many samplse in as possible, he is going to have to design a new smaller sample dish, which he is just going to do in his own time.

The current plan is that once we have an idea for the volume and such of the sample container area, and we have built a mockup with working sensors (need not be the actual ones we use) then he can get NASA funding for additional research to help us out.

[TheFlyingPigs]

Can someone tell me if you guys gave a KickStarter. I am willing to donate $100 AUD and I can force my friends etc

[Mazon Del]

There is no Kickstarter yet. The current plan is that a design (probably a few) will be created and then we will have an idea for what costs are associated with that equipment. Once we have that info, THEN we can create a Kickstarter and set a funding goal that is appropriate.

[Nicholander]

Ah, good plan Mazon Del. Also, how is the sim going K^2?