
Deploy your own satellite for $8000 - seancron
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/07/8000_diy_satellite_kit.html
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IgorPartola
Too bad it only stays up there for a few months. For a simple application that
would end up costing $24,000 per year if it stays up for 4 months at a time.
Also not knowing when it's going to fall means it will not be a great
continuous service. For small experiments though this is perfect.

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windsurfer
Or some wonderful redundancy and on-demand service increases, depending on how
you look at it.

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albertsun
Counting down to seeing this as a nerd marriage proposal

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helium
Here were I live in South Africa we have probably the most expensive broadband
internet in the world. This mainly because there are only two licensed
telecommunications providers whom have access to the only two international
internet links from here.

We already have a Wireless User Group, a free community based wireless network
in some of the major cities. <http://www.wug.za.net/> My first thought when I
read this was if it would be possible to create a private satellite internet
connection to the rest of the world. Without knowing the technical details, I
would guess that this is probably not feasible though. Although it would be
pretty cool!

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cninja
Sorry, you would need a satellite in geosynchronous orbit to do this. And $8k
satellite will get you an orbit of 192 miles above the earth. Geosynchronous
orbits are over 22000 miles above the earth.

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p3ll0n
Reminds me of an academic project I ran across once that has had a mixed
record of success ...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat>

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jared314
Now, we just need a super-villain-like plan.

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charlesap
All it needs is this:

<http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/Elite_Pro-89-37.html>

and a suitable targeting system of course.

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wallflower
Oh my. Do you have one? Just lost a chunk of time. I had no idea these "laser
pointers" existed. $2k for a 1W handheld?! Stay away from the forums - this is
a potentially expensive hobby.

I remember once my aunt's ex showing me his lab and saying if I stuck my hand
in front of the laser when on - I'd get the worst possible blister-type wound
(blood would boil underneath skin upon light contact).

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pfedor
They are illegal in the US, you should know:
<http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_254.html>

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charlesap
But are they illegal in space?

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c1sc0
What's the legal status of operating a server from space? Could this be a
second sealand?

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paolomaffei
uh, how to get internet?

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vinhboy
<http://interorbital.com/TubeSat_1.htm> \- Looks fake.

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paolomaffei
so what can you do with one?

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amohr
In school, we had a group that did microgravity experiments in freefall, could
be useful research applications along those lines. Although I'm not sure how
much control you have over the physical satellite.

Perhaps you could do some LEO photography? I'm thinking, if this is possible,
there could be some interesting mapping applications.

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forcer
could you roll-your-own satellite broadband using this way?

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roedog
The orbit geometry looks to not be compatible with that objective. A 300 km
polar orbit would put it over your ground station once or twice a day for
several minutes.

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cryptoz
Could you perhaps purchase many of them? Do they all take the same orbit
(useless) or could you build a small private network in space? If they can
launch into even just slightly different orbits, you could dramatically
improve your uptime.

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roedog
This is what the irridium system does, as well as Milstar, and other
commerical telecom systems. Irridium is a medium orbit, where milstar and the
commercial telcom are in geosynchronous orbits. A geo satellite is typically a
few thousand kg with kilowatts of power.

But for the low cost option consider how much bandwidth can the onboard
transmitter they provide handle. How big will your ground station need to be
in order to pick up the signal? I suspect a tracking dish and hardware will
exceed $8k by at least an order of magnitude.

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sliverstorm
Would adding some small booster rockets and control modules really increase
the cost that much?

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russss
Yes. There's not nearly enough capacity on one of those tubesats for a
workable propulsion system _and_ any kind of payload.

A lot of the cost advantages of the tubesats (which, incidentally, have never
been launched) come from their standard design.

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torpor
So buy two packages, put an Ion drive in one, payload in the other, have them
mate in orbit.

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relix
An ion drive would be insufficient to keep it in orbit.

