[time-nuts] OT - but of interest?

[Magnus Danielson]

Hi Chris,

On 04/27/2013 11:07 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Gregory Muir<engineering at mt.net>  wrote:
>
>> I'm curious if they ever have any problem with earth-based commercial component
>> outgassing clouding the camera optics.
>
> I went to a lecture on the idea of putting a cell phone like object in
> orbit.  The idea was that it should have a cost and size about like a
> phone.   This is very different from a pico-sat (a 4 inch cube)
> because the pico sat costs $100,000 or more and the phone is under
> $500   The idea is that $500 satellites you don't have to care about
> failures.  The plan was to place maybe 100,000 devices in orbit and as
> they fail just launch another 1,000 or so at a time.  The proposal was
> to launch them from a rocket carried under an aircraft.

The trouble I see with that approach would be that their failure rate 
would be rather high starting at about the same time, the launch, so the 
launch rate must be high enough to maintain "service". Also, you would 
like to do some basic protection scheme on each phone for them not to 
fail completely, as I suspect that temperature gradients isn't ideal of 
them. This means that the price per phone goes up and also, the price of 
each launch is relevant. The total weight is also a factor, as it 
controls the number of devices that can be launched, and hence the 
failure rate statistics to maintain service until the last one dies.

A failure of this discussion is the lack of synchronisation or even 
syntonization of these devices, or at least transmission of time signals...

Cheers,
Magnus