
Tiny 'ThumbSats' Aim to Bring Space to All - DrScump
http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/tiny-thumbsats-aim-to-bring-space-to-all-151026.htm
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vpribish
they quoted $20k (ballpark) per mission - that strikes me as a little high for
25g to LEO. What is that paying for?

Using the old benchmark of $10k per lb to LEO 25g could cost $550.

Cubesats weigh up to 1.3kg and cost about $100k to launch
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat#Costs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat#Costs))
- so that works out to $2,000 for 25g.

Is that extra $18k going to bespoke mission planning work or amortized
development costs or really great t-shirts?

This is very exciting, of course. I'm tickled by a non-game web-form having
this label: "Select how many satellites you wish to launch"

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david_shaw
I keep reading about things like the Kessler Effect
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome))
-- in fact, even here on HN.

Wouldn't launching numerous micro-satellites into orbit significantly speed up
the accumulation of space debris that will eventually be hazardous?

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vpribish
These are meant for very low orbit where they re-enter within weeks.

The biggest orbital debris problem is explosions leaving many thousands of
struts spreading out over their own special orbits. I wonder which is better
from a debris standpoint : the current mega-satellites or a swarm of micro-
satellites (with much lower explosive potential, each). There could be a
counter-intuitive result where smaller, simpler, less-energetic satellites
could mitigate the orbital debris problem.

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cgriswald
Individually, micro-sats will have much less momentum at the same speed. In
the event of a collision, not all the mass of the micro-sats will necessarily
impact the other object, either.

By way of analogy, you would probably rather be shot with buckshot than a
cannonball if you wanted an open casket.

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david-given
See also Pocket Spacecraft:

[http://pocketspacecraft.com/](http://pocketspacecraft.com/)

These are mylar disks about the size of a CD with circuitry and solar panels
printed directly onto them, with a metal stiffening wire around the edge that
doubles as the antenna. They're planning on launching hundreds via a three-
unit cubesat mothership. Last year they ran a Kickstarter to try and get a
swarm of these into lunar orbit; they didn't make their goal, but they're
going ahead anyway.

They mass substantially less than a gram each!

They're so light they reckon that they'll survive reentry into Earth's
atmosphere; if you buy one, you get your name and address printed on it so
that if someone finds it they can post it back to you...

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JoeAltmaier
Cubesats can have sensors, radios, propulsion. I'm wondering why this all
doesn't scale down to thumbsats. Particularly propultion. Only very tiny
impulse is needed to move very tiny mass. Why not a thumbsat Mars mission?

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waterlesscloud
Interested in hearing what sort of experiment would be worth doing with one of
these (I'm genuinely clueless).

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cgriswald
Off the top of my slightly drunk and exhausted head:

Hands-on education opportunities for students.

A Dyson swarm could theoretically watch and record space in all directions all
the time. We could (with great expense) build something like that in orbit
around the Earth. These could be used as a proof-of-concept or to locate
problem areas that are difficult to brainstorm on Earth.

I'm sure there are some astroimaging applications, though without knowing the
specs of the sats I'm not sure what they might be. My first thought was
gathering data outside the atmosphere to correct images taken on Earth.

