
CubeSat interplanetary exploration is heating up - tectonic
http://orbitalindex.com/archive/2020-09-02-Issue-80/
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eggy
I bought the book, and I am working through: Building High Integrity
Applications with SPARK. I put Rust aside due to Ada/SPARK's lead in this
industry. I think Rust will catch up, but SPARK2014 seems to be the way to go
for now.

[EDIT] - The CubeSat Design Team at the University of Vermont wrote the book I
mentioned above, and it is using SPARK2014. I am trying to design my own
satellite using this book as a guideline. I am just providing context to the
short, late-night comment I made above.

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gorgoiler
With the delta-V map at the end of the article, it’s amazing to see how much
closer Mars is than The Moon.

(“Closer”, while meaning nearer in distance, is also a planet surface word
meaning “cheaper to get to”. The latter sense is the one used here, for
frictionless robotic space travel.)

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zaarn
The reason is fairly simple; to get to the moon, you have to intercept the
moon and then slow down below escape velocity, if you want low orbit or
surface landing, you need to break a lot and get a circular orbit first,
possible with a tilt in case your landing spot is up north or south.

To Mars, you do not have to circularize as much as at that distance, the
transfer orbit isn't that much more elliptic compared to the moon and you also
get to aerobreak to the surface, which saves a few tons of fuel.

~~~
gorgoiler
Imagine you own and operate a train. You worry about brake pads. They are
expensive and heavy and slowing the train to a halt wears them out.

Moon is your least favourite station. In order to let passengers off at Moon
you have to come to a complete halt. The brakes get hot and wear out quickly.

Mars is a much better station to visit, at least for you. It’s surrounded by a
mountain of soft airy pillows. You can just push the passengers out the door
as you fling past, knowing they’ll hit the pillows and eventually come to a
stop. It’s uncomfortable for them but it’s not terribly dangerous and you save
a fortune on brake pads.

In fact, Moon and Mars are on two different branch lines of the railway. If
you can contrive to only operate the branch line that serves Mars station, you
don’t even need to bother fitting brakes to your train.

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mairon
How long before someone(s) decide to try to jumpstart Mars terraforming via
CubeSat or an equivalent?

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person_of_color
Is that legal?

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richsherwood
Is anything illegal in space? Which court does space law answer to?

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Rebelgecko
Under the Outer Space Treaty, most of the legal burden is put on whatever
nation something belongs to (kinda like the flag for a ship)

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rzimmerman
Rocket Lab is looking for a software engineer (preferably with some space or
other relevant experience) in Long Beach if you're interested in building
services to operate satellites including our lunar mission:

[https://www.rocketlabusa.com/careers/positions/operations-
so...](https://www.rocketlabusa.com/careers/positions/operations-software-
engineer-long-beach-california-united-states-4109873003/)

~~~
boxfire
I noticed that the job app lists US Citizenship as required for ITAR. This is
not true, Legal Permanent Residents are in fact US persons for ITAR
requirements.

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rzimmerman
Thanks for flagging that - I will double check on this and see if we can
update it.

