cube sat

[tobiokanobi]

...a very interesting company....and maybe they have some stuff we might need...

http://www.clyde-space.com/

e.g flight modules , telemetry boards...

-tobi

[alexc]

It seems to be the standard cubesat kit product line, which in my opinion is very unimpressive performance at a rather high price. On the other hand, you can buy a complete cubesat kit for 20000£, assemble it over a weekend and you have a 10x10x10 cm3 box that says bip-bip

[thuvt]

Cubesat - my favourite
Just as Alex said, the commercially available cubesat kits are simple (and thus limited in performance and functionality). You can get one kit for $7,500 (1U cubesat - 10x10x10cm), please refer to a complete price list here
http://www.pumpkininc.com/content/doc/f ... celist.pdf

IMHO, if you want to start your space adventure in LEO, cubesat kit is a good choice, but for lunar adventurers - no

[tobiokanobi]

It seems to be the standard cubesat kit product line, which in my opinion is very unimpressive performance at a rather high price. On the other hand, you can buy a complete cubesat kit for 20000£, assemble it over a weekend and you have a 10x10x10 cm3 box that says bip-bip

I thought 90% of all the sats on sky only say bip-bip

Didn't know that cubesats are so pupular

[alexc]

Well, they are, however I don't think many universities will be able to afford those prices. Maybe they are trying to target the industry.
Anyway... The batteries do look interesting. 150+ Wh/kg with built-in thermostat to keep the temperature above 0C.

[tristancho]

165 Wh/kg is a good specific energy!! I'll add to the wiki power battery list. This is our best rechargable option up to now but spensive.
http://wiki.xprize.frednet.org/index.php/Power_Battery

Good jod.
Joshua

[alexc]

Oh yes, I wanted to that but got distracted in the meantime
Thanks!

[alexc]

165 Wh/kg is a good specific energy!! I'll add to the wiki power battery list. This is our best rechargable option up to now but spensive.

At least there is a fixed price on the website, which is very uncommon for space components. Usually they want you to call and ask for a quote, which I have always found very strange. I prefer fixed product for a fixed price => low risk!

[tristancho]

Ya. A good approach is buy one battery and characterize it. We must ensure that the wiki battery list numbers are real or accurate. But not now and especially with a $1000 destructive test.
Joshua

[alexc]

Here is a really great video about the "inventors" of the cubesat concept: http://revminds.seedmagazine.com/revmin ... uig_suari/

[tristancho]

Thanks Alex for this video link. I think that, in one hand, many of these ideas we can reuse to our project: miniaturization, new technologies tested before the final Team FREDNET assembly, etc. In the other hand, many of them is not feasible due to the Launcher restrictions. If we have our own launcher we can improve many new ideas but up to now we don't have many people and we don't have many time.

Thanks,
Joshua

[scasey]

I would take a hard look at the cube sat technology. What are the flight qualified components that are applicable for our lunar mission?

Also, much of this hardware is expensive because it lacks economies of scale. To build something, 10K of machine shop time is next to nothing. By comparison, for $20K U.S. I can buy a pretty reliable automobile. Current economies of scale for commercial merchandise blind us to typical costs of proto-type developments.

Infrequent launches only make this matter worse.

Can the open source model help to reduce cubesat costs? Can this model help to monetize the innovations of the cubesat community?

I think the answers to both questions are yes - although I would like to see us monetize our rover developments first.

SC

[alexc]

Presentations from the 2009 CubeSat Developers' Workshop are now available online: http://cubesat.atl.calpoly.edu/pages/wo ... p-2009.php

There is also a new "Cubesat Shop" online: http://www.cubesatshop.com/
I am far from impressed with the prices
Of course, still much cheaper than traditional space stuff, and these are space qualifiable, but I still see a lots of potential for improvement when I compare the functional specs to the prices!

[tristancho]

Yeah!I think we can do better and cheaper.
Joshua

[scasey]

What do people think would be a suitable cubesat development program that we could offer as a commercial product?

If we think we can development something cheaper - that which product should we pick from http://www.cubesatshop.com/ ?

What about doing our own version of the CubeSat TTC Kit - II?

Other product are available from http://www.cubesatkit.com/index.html .

Should we offer cubesat space on our lunar bus for those that want to orbit the moon? This would be part of our 'going our way' program.

Comments?

SC

[tristancho]

We can offer tested parts and components but in open source like. If they want to buy us we can provide a low cost product.

Also I do believe we can improve the CubeSat technology; less weight, less cost, accesible materials by loacl providers. I whant promote a distributed market base in local development, not centralized.

I working in this idea with Enric. We can offer CAN-Do boards tested and ready to go to the space but if you want build your oun CAN-Do board, you can.

Regards,
Joshua

[scasey]

Should we offer these boards through the team FREDNET web page?

How would that work?

SC

[tristancho]

Should we offer these boards through the team FREDNET web page?

Sure!
What do you think Enric?
Joshua

[thuvt]

Should we offer these boards through the team FREDNET web page?

Why do we have to do this? To earn money for TeamFredNet? Then how much is enough?

I do agree that the current prices offered by commercial cubesat companies are very high and if we are going to be another cubesat company and compete with them, it's a good idea.

But if we're going to the Moon by selling cubesat parts, I doubt this will work.

[alexc]

Keep in mind that much of the hardware offered in the cubesat shops are already flight proven and qualifiable to be taken on as payload on the launch vehicles. These "labels" increase the price compared to consumer electronics.

[scasey]

What I had in mind was along the line of Fred's three teams model:

http://www.teamfrednet.org/index.php?op ... q-articles

In particular:

"Business Development Team

Finally, in order to build the technologies and execute the Mission, we have an Open Participation Business Team. Their job and long range goal is to create, shape, manage, market, describe, promote, and fund the activities of Team FREDNET, thereby producing an integrated package that we can present to our Sponsors, Partners, Investors, and Clients that demonstrates our vast range of capabilities. This package will show that (1) the GLXP Mission is a not-for-profit demonstration of the advantages and capabilities of a new-style Space Development business, (2) Space Commercialization can be accomplished in newer, better ways using component Open Source techniques customized for the Space Environment, and (3) Open Space Development can be beneficial and profitable for all of our peoples, nations, and economies."

To get funding, we need to demonstrate a compelling business case.

"Send us the money" doesn't count.

Being able to "develop innovative space flight hardware and software" is somewhat in the right direction. Developing integrated mission systems is an added plus.

SC

p.s. We'll also need to sell a lot of t-shirts, coffee cups, and pc boards to raise $10M.

[thuvt]

Reading recent posts in this topic, I just had an impression that everybody is jumping in the cubesat business and lose track of GLXP. Pls disregard if I'm wrong

@scasey: I have to admit that I missed that definition of "Business Development Team" but now I got the idea. In fact, the task of commercializing products from TFX development is not an easy one, it's even as difficult as the engineering task to get our lander to the Moon.

[scasey]

What I can see is the growing market for cubesat programs. Of interest was the keynote presentation at the recent cubesat conference:

http://atl.calpoly.edu/~bklofas/Present ... eynote.pdf

On slide # 25, you can see the expectation and the counter-intuitive result of the actual cubesat market.

Aside from the interest being larger than expected (by about 27%), the interest by the commercial market was a considerable fraction of the overall participation:

Whereas the expectation was that 71% of the market would be universities and 18% commercial, the slide suggests that 30% is universities with 61% being commercial.

In general, we should also look to see what's available at COTS (commercial off-the-shelf). Building anything is also a lot of trouble.

For the things we do build, we should assess whether comparable items exist in the market and whether the development has any intrinsic market potential beyond our unique use/application.

That's my 2 cents on this.

SC

[scasey]

Here's a nice collection of presentations on cubesats:

http://atl.calpoly.edu/~bklofas/Present ... rbose.html

SC

[tristancho]

Interesting,
Joshua

[jdp]

reading this thread today, it would be cool to be able to offer cube sats and parts.
but of course that market is off now with high launch fees.
as always, we're still looking for the open source launcher.

[alexc]

The cubesat market is not off!
Increased launch costs have an obvious solution: Evolve the 1U cubesat to go from 10x10x10 -> 5x5x5 cm, then 8 cubesats can share the cost!

[thuvt]

The 5x5x5cm cubesats are called femtosats, if I remember correctly.

-- mistake removed ---

[AndersFeder]

@alex: there're only 4 femtosats in a 10x10x10cm volume

Geometry never was my strong side but correct me if I am wrong:

5cmx5cmx5cm = 125cm³
10cmx10cmx10cm = 1000cm³

1000cm³/125cm³ = 8

[thuvt]

Oops, I've made a big mistake. Thanks Anders for your correction.

[alexc]

The 5x5x5cm cubesats are called femtosats, if I remember correctly.

I think that officially it is the weight not the size - of course, the two things are related to each other.

32_4.jpg (16.01 KiB) Viewed 1499 times

[tristancho]

Yes Alex,
Clasification is based on weight but not in size, shape or volume.
As per cubesat, they put the 1dm3 size as standard.
Best,
Joshua

[alexc]

Presentations from the 2009 Summer CubeSat Workshop are now available online: http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~jfoley/Summer2009/

[scasey]

I would take a hard look at the cube sat technology. What are the flight qualified components that are applicable for our lunar mission?

Also, much of this hardware is expensive because it lacks economies of scale. To build something, 10K of machine shop time is next to nothing. By comparison, for $20K U.S. I can buy a pretty reliable automobile. Current economies of scale for commercial merchandise blind us to typical costs of proto-type developments.

Infrequent launches only make this matter worse.

Can the open source model help to reduce cubesat costs? Can this model help to monetize the innovations of the cubesat community?

I think the answers to both questions are yes - although I would like to see us monetize our rover developments first.

SC

After reviewing the TFN effort over the last 4 - 5 months, I still think that an approach that embraces cubesat technologies is the way to go for this lunar mission.

Below is an interesting paper that I ran across that describes a plug-and-play methodology:

http://www.cosmiac.org/pdfs/RS7_AIAA-20 ... ellite.pdf

The recent wikisat.org effort speaks to the advantage of the compact and modular design.

SC

p.s. fyi - archives of the Cal Poly cubesat workshops are here: http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~bklofas/Presentations/zip/

[scasey]

Registration is open for the April 2010 Cubesat workshop at CalPoly:

http://www.cubesat.org/

Interested parties may want to think about attending.

SC

[scasey]

Papers from the recent QB50 workshop (an international network of 50 CubeSats for multi-point, in-situ measurements in the lower thermosphere and re-entry research) are available here:

http://www.vki.ac.be/QB50/papers.php

Topics include communications (GENSO), networks, down looking systems, de-orbit mechanisms, deployment schemes, etc..

SC

[tristancho]

Thu! this is your opportunity to test some components in space using a Cube-Sat.
My best,
Joshua

[thuvt]

Thanks Sean & Joshua for the link. In fact I met Mr P. Willekens at the 60th IAC in S. Korea this October and he introduced me with the idea, it is just amazing and now I'm studying the papers.

[tristancho]

Cool!
Joshua

[scasey]

Here is another conference which may be of interest to people:

UN/Austria/ESA Symposium on Small Satellite Programmes for Sustainable Development:
Payloads for Small Satellite Programmes, 21-24 September 2010

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/SAP/act20 ... index.html

The Symposium in 2010 will focus on "Payloads for Small Satellite Programmes" and will address the following objectives:

* Review the status of world-wide small satellite activities, with a particular focus on regional cooperation;
* Examine the potential of using small satellites for education, research and operational applications;
* Discuss the technical and programmatic issues of developing payloads for small satellites; and
* Consider the relevant regulatory issues (such as frequency allocations, space debris mitigation, registration) specific to small satellite programmes.

SC