[time-nuts] OT - but of interest?

[Lizeth Norman]

Chris and the gang,
This is an ongoing project. See here:
http://amsat-uk.org/2012/12/24/kicksat-1-sprite-amateur-radio-frequencies/

First time the fellow floated the idea on the amsat-bb I thought he was
reaching. The idea has evidentially gained some traction. Makes sense as
one of the list members observed, once there are enough to "mesh" it
becomes a communications system, rather than a bunch of satellites and
ground stations.

Why not blast a bunch of small tranceivers into orbit? That's exactly what
the phonesats were simulating and are intended to be. Short term,
inexpensive proof of concept. Meant to deorbit.
Norm n3ykf



On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com
> wrote:

> No one was talking about literally placing a cell phone in orbit.
> The idea was to design a tiny satellite with about the same cost, size
> and level of sophistication as a cell phone.  For example it would be
> silly to have an LCD screen and a microphone.    The reason for this
> was not to save money.  The goal was a communications system that
> could not be shot down or jammed.  And also that could be launched on
> a few hours notice from a set of small mobile launchers.   I liked the
> idea of a self organized switching network
>
> But no one has seriously done any work on this and it will not get built.
>
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 10:09 PM, Daniel Schultz <n8fgv at usa.net> wrote:
> > Jim Lux wrote:
> >
> >>It's been challenging to find out information like Center of Mass
> position,
> >>where the other GPS receivers are, etc. (complicated in part because half
> >>of station is measured in inches/feet, and the other half in meters)
> >
> > This reminds me of a story I heard about while building the packet module
> > power supply for the Russian module of the ISS. Apparently when the
> Russians
> > copied the type-N connector blueprints from the west, they used an
> incorrect
> > english to metric conversion factor, such that Russian-made type-N
> connectors
> > will not mate correctly with US type-N connectors (unless you use
> force). I
> > have not personally verified this story, just passing it along for your
> > consideration.
> >
> > On the subject of cell phones in space, since the cost of placing
> anything in
> > orbit is approximately equal to the value of an equivalent mass of pure
> gold,
> > efforts to do extreme cost reduction at the expense of reliability seem
> > misplaced. A $100K Cubesat costs about the same amount to place into
> orbit.
> > Getting the cost of the satellite down to a thousand dollars makes little
> > sense when it still costs $100K to put that satellite into orbit. If the
> > satellite dies early from radiation exposure you wasted the money that
> you
> > spent to launch it. And it is unnecessary to adapt terrestrial consumer
> > products for satellites when there are other good options to obtain
> components
> > engineered for the space environment at reasonable cost. AMSAT has
> decades of
> > experience in this area.
> >
> > Cell phones are consumer devices, exquisitely engineered for mass
> production
> > with reasonably high reliability (when used on Earth as intended) at
> minimum
> > per unit cost. Consumer electronics is a highly specialized area of
> > engineering, but so is space flight hardware. Using consumer electronic
> > devices in a space flight environment is a misapplication of engineering
> > principles and is destined to be a technological dead-end.
> >
> > Dan Schultz N8FGV
> >
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>
>
> --
>
> Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach, California
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