KSP Community CubeSat

[ChrisDayVACCO]

Hello all,

I am sorry to be late to the forums but I have a background building CubeSats, especially CubeSat propulsion systems at VACCO, so I might be able to provide some suggestions and mentoring.  There is a CubeSat Workshop twice a year where many designs and developments are shown.  I can supply a lot of links for more information but for now just google, "Chris Day CubeSat" if you would like information on CubeSat presentations that I have given.

[Shamus6200]

11 hours ago, ChrisDayVACCO said:

Hello all,

I am sorry to be late to the forums but I have a background building CubeSats, especially CubeSat propulsion systems at VACCO, so I might be able to provide some suggestions and mentoring.  There is a CubeSat Workshop twice a year where many designs and developments are shown.  I can supply a lot of links for more information but for now just google, "Chris Day CubeSat" if you would like information on CubeSat presentations that I have given.

Kerbal Community, Best Community! Thanks for offering your assistance Chris. Googling your presentations now.

[Kerbol Macrosystems]

Moss isn't that great of a snack. Went aren't we putting snacks in space? 

[The Optimist]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

 

How do I help?

[The Optimist]

I'm thinking a small 30mm x 30mm x 30mm box frame, which we'll insulate with some (space-grade) metal foil. If we have the means, I would suggest a simple solar sail for propulsion. Obviously, Ion engines are out of our price range, but a solar sail is much less complicated. We'll have a gyroscope on the inside, powered by a large rechargeable battery. Power will be provided by an extendable solar panel rated for vacuum. We could strap a GoPro onto the top pointing forwards, which we could rotate with the gyroscope. Comms will be a small antenna or dish, which we will use to communicate. A medium sized FM aerial should be sufficient to communicate with the cubesat, for at least a small period of time. We're also going to strap a banana next to the GoPro to examine the effects of radiation and cold on our favorite fruits.

On October 27, 2015 at 3:28:21 PM, Spaceception said:

Guys, If this is going to work, we will need:

Various Engineers,

Biologists (If you're going to do moss experiments),

Chemists,

Physicists,

Mathematicians,

And Computer Scientists/Engineers/Programmers

I think that if we can figure out 1. A reasonable time frame, 2. Where we will build, 3. How we can get enough Funding (I know you guys are considering Kickstarter), 4. The right materials, 5. How the spacecraft will get into space, 6. How we will work as a team and not do our own thing, 7. A team leader, and 8. Have I mentioned the fact we will need $100-500k in order to build it? We CAN do this. But it will need a lot of work. Other than that, THIS IS AWESOME!!! I'm only a teenager, so I'm not the best person to be suggesting how we will be constructing a spacecraft, but I hope I can help you guys do this awesome project. Also, I vote on the Phobos lander, but I think it will require 3-5 CubeSat units in order to work, And may I suggest Electrostatic Ion thrusters using Argon propellent, and a 4-panel solar array to power the thruster and CubeSat? And yes, I know I got here late, so I don't know if this was mentioned before.

Ion engines are not a viable option. They cost vast sums of money, which we simply have no access to. Which is unfortunate, since they would be a good option for this sort of low-mass simple probe.

Edited December 19, 2015 by The Optimist

[ChrisDayVACCO]

18 hours ago, The Optimist said:

If we have the means, I would suggest a simple solar sail for propulsion.

Solar sails are pretty cool for slow and long duration propulsion once their technology matures.  For example, a couple of solar sail CubeSats were designed to simply deploying a solar sail successfully:

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/lightsail-1.htm

A current technology designed for CubeSat propulsion for 1U, 2U 3U and larger CubeSats and SmallSats are cold and hot gas thrusters packaged in complete assemblies.  The assemblies include the thrusters, valves, propellant tank, electronics, etc.  Here are some examples:

http://www.cubesat-propulsion.com/

Also, my profile picture is of the propulsion system used on Mars CubeSat One (MarCO), which is a 6U CubeSat and will use its propulsion system for course corrections and pointing control on its journey to Mars.

The good news is that there are several mature propulsion system options available for CubeSats depending on our needs.

[Shpaget]

There is very little chance there will be any propulsion on this sat.

Please, visit the forums to get the better picture of what is going on and what the current goal is.

http://forums.mossat.org

[Kosmonaut]

On 7/14/2014 at 7:44 PM, K^2 said:

Honestly, no idea what to do there after landing. Not like we could bring an actual drill along. Might be possible to blast the surface with some gas and do mass spec on it for composition. It'd be kind of expensive, but not unreasonably so. That's the only thing I can think of that can be done with landing, but not with orbiter.

You could take the Curiosity route and bring a laser, although powering it would be a problem. However, although it would be expensive you could bring an RTG along, maybe harvest some of the heat energy from the laser itself.

[ChrisDayVACCO]

23 minutes ago, KosmonautwithacapitalK said:

You could take the Curiosity route and bring a laser, although powering it would be a problem. However, although it would be expensive you could bring an RTG along, maybe harvest some of the heat energy from the laser itself.

I would think that a solution would be to bring a simple scraper arm and scrape the regolith.  Then we could use a camera (color, IR or other) to inspect the exposed surface.  This setup would not require any complex or expensive equipment but would still provide a large amount of useful scientific data and would be completely reusable.

[Kosmonaut]

On 1/14/2016 at 8:17 PM, ChrisDayVACCO said:

I would think that a solution would be to bring a simple scraper arm and scrape the regolith.  Then we could use a camera (color, IR or other) to inspect the exposed surface.  This setup would not require any complex or expensive equipment but would still provide a large amount of useful scientific data and would be completely reusable.

Yeah true. That would be much cheaper and more effective.

 

 

Seriously though...Lasers.

 

I agree with you, just to clarify. I just thought it would be cool to harvest the excess energy from the laser.

[NFUN]

They aren't going to the Martian moons or any other body. They are sending a moss-filled Cubesat to LEO to study.

[batman78781]

On 12/9/2015 at 0:28 PM, Spaceception said:

With a 3-D printed Jeb on the side of it like he's joyriding.

Yes!  Maybe we could have the rest of the team too, but they might have to be stickers or something. I hate to say it, but 3d models might be unnecessary weight, even if it's Jeb and the crew.

[fredinno]

On June 10, 2015 at 7:08 AM, SemiaCloud said:

I think we should go to phobos.

Do you have the money for that?

[batman78781]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Do you have the money for that?

Agreed, there is no way we could raise enough for that. There are options to get to LEO that are considerable, but there is no way we could go beyond without piggybacking on something. Those spots are probably reserved for private university cubesats or something, and besides, they will probably do more science than us anyway, and NASA and other space agencies like that kind of stuff.

[fredinno]

34 minutes ago, batman78781 said:

Agreed, there is no way we could raise enough for that. There are options to get to LEO that are considerable, but there is no way we could go beyond without piggybacking on something. Those spots are probably reserved for private university cubesats or something, and besides, they will probably do more science than us anyway, and NASA and other space agencies like that kind of stuff.

Would it be possible to make a deal to maybe sell the science data?

[batman78781]

I'm not sure, maybe. It really depends on what experiments we do. I think I read something here about moss, but NASA has already done that. I think it should be something new that hasn't been done extensively so there is a good reason to send it along with a spacecraft.

[NFUN]

13 hours ago, batman78781 said:

I'm not sure, maybe. It really depends on what experiments we do. I think I read something here about moss, but NASA has already done that. I think it should be something new that hasn't been done extensively so there is a good reason to send it along with a spacecraft.

You sure NASA has already done the moss study that the MossSat folks are doing? I'm pretty sure their experiment is unique.

[ChrisDayVACCO]

 

On 1/21/2016 at 11:45 PM, batman78781 said:

I'm not sure, maybe. It really depends on what experiments we do. I think I read something here about moss, but NASA has already done that. I think it should be something new that hasn't been done extensively so there is a good reason to send it along with a spacecraft.

NASA has already done some work on genetically modified bacteria and yeast in LEO in a CubeSat.  Here are some links that we can learn from:

http://www.cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2007/Yost_Bruce.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PharmaSat

[fredinno]

7 minutes ago, ChrisDayVACCO said:

 

NASA has already done some work on genetically modified bacteria and yeast in LEO in a CubeSat.  Here are some links that we can learn from:

http://www.cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2007/Yost_Bruce.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PharmaSat

And they will do it again following EM-1, in deep space.

[ChrisDayVACCO]

On another CubeSat topic:  The 13th Annual CubeSat Developers' Workshop is coming on April 20-22!  Registration will open in coming weeks.  It is all student run and it is at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA, USA.  If you are able to go, message me and we can meet up there.  The workshop is a great way to see what people are doing with CubeSats, what hardware is available and "lessons learned" by experienced CubeSat developers!

Here is information on previous CubeSat Workshops:  http://blog.cubesat.org/index.php/workshops/past-workshops

Here is where the next workshop's information will be posted:  http://www.cubesat.org/index.php

[ChrisDayVACCO]

13 minutes ago, fredinno said:

And they will do it again following EM-1, in deep space.

You are right.  It is called BioSentinel.  Here is a presentation on it from a CubeSat Workshop:

http://www.cubesat.org/images/cubesat/presentations/DevelopersWorkshop2014/Ricco_BioSentinel.pdf

[MajorLeaugeRocketScience]

Quick vote for the launch: the Electron. It's a SmallSat launcher that can carry 20 to 30 something NanoSats (1U). It's test launch(s) are in about a month or so. They have commercial launches starting this year. The best part, a 1U sat is only $77K for 2017 or later. Here's a link: http://www.rocketlabusa.com

[fredinno]

6 hours ago, MajorLeaugeRocketScience said:

Quick vote for the launch: the Electron. It's a SmallSat launcher that can carry 20 to 30 something NanoSats (1U). It's test launch(s) are in about a month or so. They have commercial launches starting this year. The best part, a 1U sat is only $77K for 2017 or later. Here's a link: http://www.rocketlabusa.com

Nah, just get a cubesat secondary launch. Those are cheaper, and we need things as cheap as possible for this mission.

[MajorLeaugeRocketScience]

Last I checked, including "integration" fees, a secondary payload could be up to $200,000

[SR]

On ‎15‎/‎07‎/‎2014 at 5:16 PM, EpicRootHairCell said:

I think we will function as international body linked via the internet but with construction taking place probably in the U.S. but the U.K would be a good bet to.

P.S. i'm British

Not the UK. The space act makes launching cubesats almost impossible. as the space act assumes satellites are big multi million pound vehicles, it means you have to pay insurance and tax wich adds up to sixty thousand.