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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 abou

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 8y ago
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_constellation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat... [4] https://www.astranis.com https://www.astranis.com
- digikata 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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.
dr_orpheus 8y ago
The way that I have seen it is that cheaper launches and the widespread rideshare options have definitely changed how accessible space is. The cheaper launches made it so people/companies didn't have to worry as much about reducing risk before launching it in to space. Planet is a good example, their production line of satellites is not typically what you see in the aerospace industry. But with the cheaper launches you don't care as much if only 80% (this is just an example, I don't have any actual data Planet keeps that pretty close to the chest) of your satellites survive. This has also led to a lot more university level science projects too. And the increased economies of scale for cubesat components have driven priced down low enough that there are high school classes launching cubesats.

kartikkumar 8y ago

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_constellation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat... [4] https://www.astranis.com https://www.astranis.com

digikata 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.

dr_orpheus 8y ago

The way that I have seen it is that cheaper launches and the widespread rideshare options have definitely changed how accessible space is. The cheaper launches made it so people/companies didn't have to worry as much about reducing risk before launching it in to space. Planet is a good example, their production line of satellites is not typically what you see in the aerospace industry. But with the cheaper launches you don't care as much if only 80% (this is just an example, I don't have any actual data Planet keeps that pretty close to the chest) of your satellites survive. This has also led to a lot more university level science projects too. And the increased economies of scale for cubesat components have driven priced down low enough that there are high school classes launching cubesats.