6 ms·
$50SAT – Eagle2 (2015)
- jonas21 4y agoSo it operated for a year and a half, and now it's a $50 piece of space junk?
- bagels 4y agoI will take this question at face value. No, it re-entered, and is not orbital junk. https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=39436#results https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=39436#results
- jonas21 4y agoAh, that's good to know. I was concerned at first because their "current location" link [1] shows an object still in orbit. But I realize now that the site defaults to showing the ISS if it can't find the object. [1] http://www.satview.org/?sat_id=39436U http://www.satview.org/?sat_id=39436U
- danielheath 4y agoLow orbits (eg Starlink) decay very quickly - if the satellites thruster failed, it would burn up due to drag within 8 years (typically satellites deliberately de-orbit via thruster at EOL). Cheap satellites almost exclusively use low orbits since they are cheaper to reach.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoA year and a half is really good for a $50 sat. Some makeshift ones only last hours, like suitsat-1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuitSat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuitSat A year and a half is amazing for off-the-shelf non-space-rated parts. Vacuum, radiation, temperature differences of hundreds of degrees all wreak havoc on electronics. A year and a half is really excellent. And like others mentioned these types of experiments are put in such low orbits that they decay quickly after their service life.
- ggm 4y ago$250 sat. Free (or unquantified) launch cost, labour priced at $0. Awesome stuff. Looks like they used a metal measuring tape as antenna. I totally love the concept.
- throwaway81523 4y agoOTRAG (failed German rocket launching startup) did that thing with the measuring tape antennas in the 1980s. They also used Volkswagen windshield wiper motors as rocket nozzle actuators, iirc.
- ggm 4y agoI read about them in the 70s. Bundles of smaller rockets, lots of venturi and sea launches. Hard to compete with state actor rocketry at the time. And multi-nozzle rocketry was still a minefield then (I believe it was said to be why the Russian giant launcher failed, where Saturn V succeeded by being brute force simpler to engineer) In some ways, OTRAG feels like spaceX three decades too soon.
- throwaway81523 4y agoOTRAG was involved in some juicy scandals whose specifics I don't remember. I'll have to watch the movie that rkagerer mentioned sometime. There is a wikipedia article, but it seems to gloss stuff over.
- avmich 4y ago> I believe it was said to be why the Russian giant launcher failed, where Saturn V succeeded by being brute force simpler to engineer Many nozzles can actually be beneficial (engine-out capability) or neutral (Soyuz rocket family flies for 60+ years with 32 nozzles running at the start). According to Chertok, problems were with engines quality themselves (e.g. insufficient manufacturer experience), CORD system (new electronic system to manage many engines), absence of test stands for integrated first stage (given single-start engines, could be insufficient). Number itself isn't a problem, as demonstrated by e.g. Falcon Heavy - it's the novel N-1 rocket, which both failed and had many engines, which leads to conclusion these are related a certain way.
- tmptmpgo 4y agoI assumed this was going to be SAT solving as a service.
- stevefan1999 4y agoAgreed
- benatkin 4y agoI thought it was Dogecoin to a dollar but with Bitcoin instead, and more like Dogecoin to a hundred thousand dollars. https://cryptocurrencyfacts.com/what-are-sats/ https://cryptocurrencyfacts.com/what-are-sats/ At $50 a sat, 1 bitcoin would be worth 5 billion dollars.
- quickthrower2 4y agoI thought this too. Gave my eyes a yoga session before clicking, then I realised it was something interesting!
- dang 4y agoRelated: The $50 satellite Eagle2 Launched into Space - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671209 - April 2014 (2 comments)
- eddywebs 4y agoAny ideas How much does it cost to launch one of these $ ?
- gs17 4y agoBased on past experience it's either free for you or at least many tens of thousands. I was involved in a cubesat group and that's a big issue we had, we couldn't make an innovative payload that would get us sent for free and none of us had that kind of money sitting around.
- default_png 4y agoOh Hey ! I actually know a bit about this.. If you want to watch a talk by this guy about the satellite. Go here. https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2016/101-the-story-behind-50sat https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2016/101-the-story-behind-5...