
A crash course on hacking satellites - PatrolX
https://nyan-sat.com/chapter0.html
======
elwell
I didn't know you could embed CSS animations in an SVG file.

It's a thing of beauty: [https://nyan-
sat.com/assets/licensed/orbital_comparison.svg](https://nyan-
sat.com/assets/licensed/orbital_comparison.svg)

Be sure to view page source.

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sillysaurusx
This seems noticeably snappier than canvas, too.

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pierrec
It works smoothly for a smallish diagram like this, but that's as far as it
goes. I attempted to create a 100% SVG music score editor and only realized my
mistake after having put way too much work into it: working with large scores
was sluggish to the point of making the whole thing useless. If you want
snappy, I believe the best approach currently is to use a library that
emulates the canvas API on WebGL (for example Pixi.js).

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joncrane
I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the hilarity of the domain name.
For those who don't get it: it's a play on the name of the nyan-cat meme:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyan_Cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyan_Cat)

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system2
I never understood why it got popular. Dancing baby was worse though.

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smichel17
I think this should explain it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

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uoaei
I was hoping you would link to this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgTxQm9DWM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgTxQm9DWM)

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smichel17
Mine is also a (cryptic) answer to the question -- they were popular for
similar reasons, I think.

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mindcrime
"Oh yeah, you want a seriously righteous hack, you score one of those orbiting
satellites, man. You know, satellites they use to like, do cosmology, and look
for oil and stuff?"

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chrisstanchak
Hack the Gibson

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PatrolX
US Air Force Space Security Challenge 2020: Hack-a-Sat

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22991947)

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anonymousiam
Yes. It sucks that they only took the top 10 teams. My team scored in the top
1.5%, but did not qualify.

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jeffrallen
Hacking for feds... Hmm, yeah, think I'll pass on that "offer".

~~~
felbane
Great job, citizen! Here are your celebratory linked steel bracelets. Enjoy
your vacation!

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tectonic
Be sure to check out [https://www.hackasat.com/](https://www.hackasat.com/)
this weekend as part of DEF CON!

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karmicthreat
Hack-a-sat is going to be a fun time this weekend. Far enough outside most of
our domain knowledge that you have to learn quick and on the fly.

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kwesthaus
Are you competing this weekend? I put together a small team for qualifiers and
had a blast with the CTF problems. We did well enough to get challenge coins
but not to move on to finals.

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karmicthreat
Yep! My original team wasn’t quite high enough to be top 9. We merged with
another team a member was friends with.

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jamesholden
I have always wanted to do something with satellites. Especially with SpaceX
and global satellite internet coming. What can I do/learn? What will be valid
in the next 5-10 years? I'm not sure where to start.

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non-entity
I've seen tutorial and projects that consume data from satellites, but I
imagine there's not much for the hobbyist outside that.

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TedDoesntTalk
You mean like the website in the post?

[https://nyan-sat.com/chapter4.html](https://nyan-sat.com/chapter4.html)

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fit2rule
I wish there were a simple and easy way to connect to a satellite, at the same
kind of level of effort as .. say .. connecting to a BBS in the 80's .. and
access it, just like an 80's BBS - i.e. upload a message, wait for a response
while the thing flies overhead/across the globe, etc.

I guess this project kind of achieves that in a way. If you can build the
hardware you can access a very elite messaging system.

It just seems to me to be a great place to put a BBS. I wonder if there are
satellites up there that have that kind of interface ..

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jibcage
As a matter of fact, there are several! FalconSat-3 is the one most people
connect to in the USA. I think there might also be one aboard the ISS, but
most people use the ISS for forwarding APRS packets.

You need an amateur radio license to connect to these, but once you have one
you can get into all sorts of other radio projects around the world too :)

Edit: The downside, of course, is that you usually only have (at most) a
20-minute connection window before you lose line-of-sight, since these
satellites are in LEO.

[https://www.amsat.org/falconsat-3/](https://www.amsat.org/falconsat-3/)

~~~
fit2rule
That is really nice to know, thanks for the info .. I'll have to find someone
in my scene who can log onto falconsat, I'm sure I know a HAM or two who might
at least pick up the flag and demo it one of these days ..

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vorpalhex
The shame here is that the PCB isn't easily available. I can supply pan/tilt
kits and SDRs, but I can't even get a CAD of their PCB to order a batch.

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Taniwha
Looking closely at the PCB I suspect he's really worried that he's going to
fuck it up

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kanobo
Oh interesting, this guide was made in partnership with the Air Force?? (see
footer)

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gnabgib
Yes, this is part of the Hack-a-Sat competition from Defcon.. the wired
article[0] posted here two days ago[1] goes into more detail

[0]: [https://www.wired.com/story/nyansat-open-source-satellite-
tr...](https://www.wired.com/story/nyansat-open-source-satellite-tracker/)
[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24049836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24049836)

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ColanR
I'm surprised (but maybe I shouldn't be) that there's no mention at all of
antennas. I guess it's a lot easier to get a signal from something in line of
sight above you.

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antihero
I hope they leave this up after DEFCON. It looks really easy to follow and I
would like to get back into hacking on hardware when I got a bit more time.

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TuringNYC
All the kits are sold out - has anyone found a quick way to get all the parts?

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amenghra
Small typo at the beginning, seems the microcontroller is ESP32, not EPS32.

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inamberclad
What is the hacking part here? This looks like how to set up a ground station.

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AtHeartEngineer
To get started hacking satellites, you've got to communicate with them first

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leoedin
You're not going to do much outward communication with a receive-only SDR
though. Not really hacking as much as listening.

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ReedJessen
Will there be another run of kits made?

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samplatt
They're easy and cheap to buy from arduino stores (or similar). The only part
of their shopping list that I don't have in my general "unfinished projects"
bin is the pan/tilt gimbal. I've built one manually before but it was a bit
crappy.

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mensetmanusman
There are a couple nation states that would love to take over starlink once it
is activated.

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flingo
Why do you think that? Are you just guessing?

