Questions tagged [smallsat]
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Why did the Virgin One launch fail?
What caused the early shutdown of Virgin rocket's upper stage? The previous failure was also due to early shutdown of engine, although that was first stage failure. As per reports available in public, ...
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What would be the advantages and disadvantages of a LEO Earth observation satellite, carrying both Electro optical and SAR payload be?
An Indian startup, is trying to build a multi- payload satellite having both optical and SAR sensor on the same satellite. The look angles of the these payload are quite different and it is very ...
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What are the primary business challenges for Firefly Aerospace to capturing a large enough market share of the 1-ton payload market to be successful?
The recent CNBC video How Ex-SpaceX Engineers Are Fueling The Space Race With Firefly (linked below) is worth a watch, and notes include the following:
a team comprised of industry veterans, Firefly ...
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What will Taiwan's NSPO put in orbit around the Moon in 2025? How will it get there? What will it do?
The Taipei Times article NSPO head eyeing 80% autonomy of satellite industry says:
Following the six-satellite Formosat-7/COSMIC-2 constellation’s launch in 2019, weather observation satellite Triton ...
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Is New Shepard an orbit-capable first stage? Could an (albeit small) 2nd stage with propulsion be put on top that could put a smallsat into orbit?
This answer to How is New Shepard the first suborbital booster to successfully perform a powered vertical soft landing? discusses a potential differentiation between Falcon 9's first successful ...
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What was the first satellite built with mostly COTS electronics?
Computers and memory, radios, cameras, light sensors, temperature sensors, accelerometers & gyros1, power supplies, power conditioners and converters and battery interfaces can all be put together ...
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Closest distance at which cubesat (or comparable smallsat) has communicated with the Deep Space Network or any large 10+ meter dish? Cis-lunar ever?
Discussion below Will future deep space optical communications "ground stations" actually be in space, or on the ground? has got me wondering about the improbable situation where a giant ...
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Do deployments of multiple cubesats generally obey proposed guidelines such as 20 seconds or more between deployments at 5 m/s or faster?
This answer to What can be done in future mass-cubesat deploys to make them “less irksome” to orbital space debris experts? links to Space Traffic Safety: A New Self-Governance Approach for the ...
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Have any satellites had lights visible from Earth besides FITSat-1?
Clearly not a duplicate! of Why does the International Space Station have a downward facing light?
This answer to How does the Starlink satellite shine? begins with
Starlink (and other satellites) ...
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Have magnetotorquers ever been used to spin-up a satellite?
Magnetotorquers are often used for momentum dumping of reaction wheels in smallsats, and they can use them as well for attitude control directly, per answers to Are there any modern cubesats or ...
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Are there any modern cubesats or smallsats that have relied only on magnetotorquers for attitude control?
This comment got me thinking...
Question: Are there any modern cubesats or smallsats that have relied only on magnetotorquers for attitude control, sans reaction wheels or thrusters?
Ideally an ...
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Has one satellite's outgassing ever affected another satellite in the same fairing? Documented examples?
At about 01:31 in Scott Manley's new video RocketLab & Reusable Rockets - Plasma Knifes, Ballutes, Helicopters and... Elephants he says:
This occurs during a ...
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News of eXCITe with QIKcom-2 and SeeMe, have they been launched, or is there currently one scheduled?
Comments under the question What ever happened to SHERPA? about NovaWurks, Inc. led me to search for the DARPA eXCITe microsatellite. Spaceflight 101's page includes:
Th(e) objectives of the ...
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What is this "space ring"? Is it SHERPA or something new, or just "art"?
In the orbitalreflector.com website there is a picture of a ring that looks like it can deploy smallsats as part of a more complex launch. Reverse image search turns up another view, both shown below.
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Have there been any other "camsats" besides Banxing-2?
Banxing-2 is a 47 kg LEO satellite deployed from China's Tiangong-2 on 22 October 2016. It is planned to say in an orbit matched to Tiangong-2 so that it stays in close proximity.
According to Gunter'...
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How can the CYGNSS spacecrafts (actually) measure ocean roughness?
The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System is a group of 8 smallsats which will orbit near the equator (inc=30°) and work as a constellation to take data on typhoons and hurricanes. While they are ...
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