Welcome your new Master! (Inexpensive Satellite)

watty

Can you all get together and buy me one for Christmas?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/04/tube_sat/

Interorbital Systems is offering your own orbiting satellite for only $8,000, including launch, though evil geniuses might balk at the expected 2-week lifespan before a fiery re-entry.
...
Fitting a doomsday machine into the 13.5cm long TubeSat, which is only 8.7cm wide, will challenge plans for world domination, but that will be where the "genius" comes into play.

The company suggests you might use your TubeSat for everything from "Earth-from-space video imaging" to "private e-mail" or "On-orbit advertising", though we're not sure what the audience figures would be for the latter. More realistically, buyers might like to bounce amateur radio signals off their own bird, or try experiments within orbital conditions.

We have a Boards "Hobby Radio". Having our own satellite would really be a "broad horizon"

Pity it only lasts 2 weeks.

jumpguy

"Earth-from-space video imaging"

Seriously, that would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? We should create an EYH pool and launch our own...

watty

You can do a limited version of that possibly up to 50km altitude with a Weather ballon.
Very short lived, but cheap.

Plus you get to recover the Cheese electronics usually by parachute.

Mahatma coat

I remember someone theorised a few years ago that you could use Weather ballons for the first stage of a rocket launch, up to say 40Miles, then you could use a conventional Missile - Example in that case was an exocet- I have heard rumors that the Japanese had succeeded in placing satelites into geostationary orbit by this method.

if this is true, then why are these things being sold with a rapidly deteriorating orbit, surely if $8K Gets me into space it wont cost a hell of a lot more to keep these things in a stable orbit for an extended period of time.

I mean Eight Grand for two weeks seems a bit much, but if it was ten Grand for 3 months would that get people more exxcited?

watty

Geo orbit is about 1000x higher than a ballon gets to

LEO is about x4 to x10 higher than a ballon can get to

jumpguy

watty wrote: »

You can do a limited version of that possibly up to 50km altitude with a Weather ballon.
Very short lived, but cheap.

Plus you get to recover the Cheese electronics usually by parachute.

Hmm I was thinking that the camera would be expendable. Extra cost but worth it. And have the images being broadcast to the ground. Would it be possible via the antennae already on the satellite?

Mahatma coat wrote: »

I remember someone theorised a few years ago that you could use Weather ballons for the first stage of a rocket launch, up to say 40Miles, then you could use a conventional Missile - Example in that case was an exocet- I have heard rumors that the Japanese had succeeded in placing satelites into geostationary orbit by this method.

if this is true, then why are these things being sold with a rapidly deteriorating orbit, surely if $8K Gets me into space it wont cost a hell of a lot more to keep these things in a stable orbit for an extended period of time.

I mean Eight Grand for two weeks seems a bit much, but if it was ten Grand for 3 months would that get people more exxcited?

It would be very complicated to launch it off a weather balloon I'd imagine, although the extra 40km could add up to a week, maybe two onto it's orbit. As watty said, it'd never be able to make geosynchronise orbit unless it's launched on a huge rocket. Geosync is 1000's of KM up.

watty

Yes you can do hires imagaging from the satellite. But you lose your expensive remote controlled lens& Camera.

Geo is 22,500 miles or 36,000km above the Equator.

jumpguy

How much satellites are in geosync orbit then, and what kinda rocket do they need to get there?

I guess you would, but then again you'll also lose your expensive satellite anyway.

watty

Geo orbit is most use for TV

For mapping a transpolar orbit is best because as the craft orbits and the earth rotates, the entire earth is seen.

For radio or mapping near artic or antartic or poles you need at least 3 craft in a Molniya orbit.

For low latency communication you need LEO (Low Earth Orbit) like Iridium at 780km altitude, or at least 25 times higher than a weather balloon.

GPS and other satellite Navigation need a High Orbit, but not Geosychronous, 22,000km rather than the Geo 36,000km.

The range of the space shuttle is very limited, it only manages LEO. It's range of course depends on payload.
Saturn V used for Apollo could deliver nearly 50 tonnes to Earth /Lunar orbit. It was scrapped as a condition of doing the Shuttle program.

The Russians and ESA's Ariane are the highest capacity launches available now. Ariane can deliver two 12 tonne satellites to Geosynchronous Orbits in a single Launch.

Currently there are approximately 2,465 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth and 6,216 pieces of space debris as tracked by the Goddard Space Flight Center. Over 16,291 previously launched objects have decayed into the Earth's atmosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_orbit

I recommend Orbitron as a download to install (it's "postcard ware") from http://www.stoff.pl/

I use it for tracking ISS and communications satellites or see when "flares" are visible.

You have to "update" the "TLE" files every few days via interent (small enough data sets for dialup or mobile voice data charges).

I'd guess less than 500 Geostationary and Geosynchronous Satellites.

Mahatma coat

heres a link to a story about what I was sayin
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/39417/co_to_try_satellite_launch_with_balloons/

so this is only low orbit, but seriously tho, it should be some interestin maths, the higher you go the less force gravity has, so its a case of gettin enough fuel to high enough altitude to facilitate a launch to outer orbit, but as I see it the cleverness is in gettin it to 40 miles up to begin with, before the rockets fire, I suppose every inch of altitude is a few feet further for the rocket

as an aside

did any of the recent Lunar missions get a photo of the earth???

I'd be interested to see it now, there is a theory that we almost ahve enough satelites out there now that they would look to the casual observer like a teeeeeeny version of Saturn.

I've seenm computer visualisations but I was wonderin of a 'Real' Photo exists.

watty

The satellites are small and about 200km to 4000km apart.