
The Thrill of Building Space Hardware to Exceptionally High Standards - rbanffy
https://hackaday.com/2019/02/04/the-thrill-of-building-space-hardware-to-exceptionally-high-standards/
======
kartikkumar
Space hardware is slowly but surely becoming commoditized and accessible.
There are a number of initiatives to break open the market on the smallsat
side.

Groups like the Libre Space Foundation [1] and LibreCube [2] are doing a great
job of opening up the whole stack (software+hardware for space, launch, and
ground systems). Projects like Ardusat [3] are also helping to "democratize"
space, to use a cliche. Ardusat actually led to the founding of Spire [4], one
of many commercial EO constellation companies that have benefited from the
process of commoditization.

The "giant leap" really is closing a lot faster than people realize.

If you're interested in exploring the kind of hardware on the space market,
check out [https://satsearch.co](https://satsearch.co). We've currently got
5,000+ products & services for the space market listed, with the goal being to
use data to crack open the supply chain, enabling spin-in, spin-out, tech
transfer, etc.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the co-founders at satsearch.

[1] [https://libre.space](https://libre.space)

[2] [https://librecube.org](https://librecube.org)

[3] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-
your-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/ardusat-your-arduino-
experiment-in-space)

[4] [https://www.spire.com/en](https://www.spire.com/en)

~~~
NikolaeVarius
Some thoughts I've had on the commoditized hardware. Would it be more accurate
to say that launches have gotten cheap enough to make it even worth talking
about putting up "cheap hardware" into orbit?

I say 'cheap' in the sense that the hardware is not designed/have "engineered
lifespans" to actually stay functional for long periods of time in space. As
long as they go up, stay on for a few months and don't care that much about
cosmic rays flipping bits to make 1+1=3, its good enough.

~~~
kartikkumar
I think that's definitely one way of looking at it. Planet [1] kinda pioneered
this idea as "Agile Aerospace" [2]. When I visited the Planet HQ in SF, I
remember having lunch with a bunch of their Doves (flight hardware) lying on
the table next to me :P That was sorta unthinkable 20 years ago.

There's definitely a changing attitude towards what can be launched into
space. The "cheap" satellites are not going to necessarily achieve the extreme
performance needed for some missions, but by being more commercial, there's a
new wave of missions that target specific, market-driven use-cases, and they
don't all need the latest/greatest/fanciest tech.

Additionally, the orbit you fly in affects this conversation a lot. For Low
Earth Orbit <1000 km, I'm confident that the market is going to be dominated
by commodity hardware, except for flagship missions perhaps.

Higher altitudes require greater reliability due to radiation and are just
more expensive orbits to get to. So I think it's going to take a little
longer. Having said that, there are a bunch of companies tackling the higher
orbits, like SpaceX with Starlink [3], and even YC alum Astranis [4] in GEO.

The way I like to think of it is that the space sector is maturing from a
craft to a profession, and with that, commoditization offers a clear path
towards scalability.

[1] [https://www.planet.com](https://www.planet.com)

[2]
[https://www.planet.com/company/approach](https://www.planet.com/company/approach)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_\(satellite_constellation\))

[4] [https://www.astranis.com](https://www.astranis.com)

~~~
digikata
The CubeSat projects at Cal Poly and Stanford I think are what led to lowering
costs and allowing the launch of riskier hardware and spawned this corner of
the space industry. Planet was definitely one of the first to have the vision
to commercialize that capability.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat)

~~~
kartikkumar
Sure, the CubeSat standard was a big breakthrough of course. Bob Twiggs &
Jordi Puig-Suari really helped to push forward the idea of standardization as
a path towards reducing costs, but it was primarily intended as a learning
platform for grad students.

I kinda draw the analogy of how the Raspberry Pi went from being a learning
tool, to something that hackers/makers saw as an opportunity to innovate on.
CubeSats went through a similar transition.

The work that then led to commercial activities came from a lot of different
people have similar ideas about how commoditization can help to reduce costs
and allow for riskier projects.

There's actually a strong bias in the media that doesn't reflect the diversity
of projects, missions, and technologies on the market at the moment. The idea
of using a platform like CubeSats to open up the space sector is a lot more
widespread than I think more people are aware of.

------
bsder
While I agree wholeheartedly about the fact that USB is a disaster for
interconnect, CAN is a mixed bag.

The fact that CAN systems are limited to 8 bytes a transaction is a blessing
and a curse. If everything can fit in 8 bytes--and generally broadcast--then
CAN is awesome. It is fully differential. It has a really good autobaud
algorithm. It has CRC and bit stuffing to avoid too many 1's or 0's in a row.
It automatically retries under most conditions. It has a specified arbitration
algorithm if two devices attempt to grab the bus.

If, however, you start needing bidirectional transactions or transactions
larger than 8 bytes, it's not so good. And, one of the big problems today is
that secure channel setup almost always requires bidirectional exchanges
larger than 8 bytes.

Under most conditions, nowadays, you should probably reach for Ethernet,
first. There is a reason why practically every standard (Ethernet, HDMI,
USB-C, Displayport, Thunderbolt) has converged to 4 matched pairs for data
transmission.

The single condition nowadays that would drive you towards CAN is truly
deterministic, hard real-time timing.

~~~
dr_orpheus
I have worked with CAN on spacecraft and it was always a great option for what
we needed. It is used as the critical communications bus on the spacecraft
where the real-time timing is needed. So systems that control telemetry,
tracking and control (TTC) and attitude determination and control of the
spacecraft are usually run on CAN or something similar.

But there is always a mix of communications standards. For higher speed data
(such as from an imaging payload) then other standards such as Ethernet, LVDS,
Spacewire, etc. are used.

For a critical communications bus in space there aren't that many good
options. CAN and MIL-STD-1553 are probably the most common that you will find.
I have worked with both and CAN is definitely much nicer to use.

------
walrus01
If you want to play around with what you might realistically be able to one
day send into space, there's free STL files for 1U, 2U and 3U size cubesat
chassis available online for 3d printing.

Gives you a good idea of the challenge in fitting solar panels, batteries,
flight controller, radios, insulation, etc into a 1U cubesat.

[https://m.yeggi.com/q/cubesat/](https://m.yeggi.com/q/cubesat/)

3d printers as cheap as $170 can print these, with reasonably good accuracy
with the right tuning/settings and 0.1mm layer height.

------
saagarjha
> It’s fair to say that the majority of Hackaday readers have not built any
> hardware that’s slipped the surly bonds of Earth and ventured out into space
> proper.

s/hardware/software/. I'm curious to know what the ISS "tech stack" is…

~~~
walrus01
The thinkpads run a custom build of Debian stable. A huge variety of embedded
systems, Zarya for example was designed to function as a solo free flying
spacecraft.

------
tosca
Can someone explain to me how a seal works in a vacuum?

~~~
evilduck
The same way they work everywhere else. Its just a pressure differential and a
relatively small one compared to things like high pressure gas tanks we have
here on earth. The 14PSI they need to keep in vs the 0 PSI outside is
relatively small compared to even something like a tubeless road bicycle tire.

