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Some ideas about what might be done with cubesats
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A note from Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

Research Director, Institute for the Future

I became aware of nanosatellite projects a couple years ago, after reading a report on microsatellites and the future of Third World space programs. I've also been following the DIY movement, and the growing use of amateurs in scientific research. I've also been really interested in what happens when a resource that traditionally has been really precious-- scarce enough to shape the way you work and do science-- becomes essentially free. We've seen how making computational power incredibly cheap has changed the way people do science, and I think you can make a case that cheap sensors and vehicles are having a similar impact on things like public health and oceanography. (You can even see tagged ocean predators as something like very cheap scientific labor.)

The recent NSF decision to put some money into supporting cubesats struck me as a sign that the technology was starting to... well... take off. And cubesats seem to me to be balanced at a point where they can make good use of DIY energies, and because of their low cost, radically alter the economics of space science.

After digging into it a little more, I was impressed by some historical parallels to cubesats. As we all know, in the 1970s, computers were expensive, exclusive, and used by scientists and governments. Within a couple decades, the personal computer democratized access to the technology, and started a revolution in how we work, communicate, and play.

This is not to say that there aren't plenty of technical and legal problems that have to be solved to make cubesats cheap and accessible. While today's cubesats communicate with ground stations via ham radio-level technology, that kind of technology would break down if there were millions of cubesats; engineers are working on protocols for inter-satellite communications, but the technical issues are pretty hard. Before they're launched in great numbers, we need to come up with strategies for dealing with decommissioned or failed cubesats. There's already a lot of space junk (described on Scientific), and if cubesats are to be viable, they really can't make the problem worse. It would also be ideal to have new kinds of launch vehicles that don't pollute (or cost) as much as traditional rockets. And finally, there will doubtless be unforseen legal issues with cubesats.

None of these issues will be solved easily. But people are working on all of them. Space debris experts like Heiner Klinkrad say we can deal with space junk through better design of launchers, the assignment of graveyard orbits for decommissioned satellites (something that some satellite operators are already doing, without official incentives), and changes to satellite design that reduce the number of objects they eject when deploying. Innovation in propulsion systems, rather than being something that would hinder the growth of cubesats, might be accelerated by the greater demand for new propulsion systems that this new category of satellite would create. And some very smart people are working on the next generation of satellite communications.

We recognize that it's optimistic to assume that all these problems can be solved within a decade, but we've decided to be a little audacious. Maybe all the pieces of an ideal space infrastructure won't be in place, but enough will be there to make cheap cubesats feasible. It's entirely possible that their popularity will strain existing communications and launch infrastructures, or create completely new and unforseen problems; but that's what we want to explore in the game. It's not completely implausible to imagine that space in the 2020s could be like computing in the 1970s, and cubesats could be the Apple II-- the technology that brings it within everyone's reach, and spurs a whole new generation of design and innovation. It's that dynamic, and opportunities and challenges it could raise, that we want to explore in the game.

Also See:
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang's Lab Profile

Some ideas about what might be done with cubesats:

Individual Cubesats

  • Photograph or take sensor readings (for example, readings of the Earth's magnetic field) for an area on the earth every 90 minutes. This can include natural phenomena, or human-generated signals.
  • Take sensor readings of the earth's atmosphere, particularly the upper atmosphere and atmosphere/space boundary, or objects in space.
  • Monitor their surroundings-- for example, to catalog and remove space junk, monitor cosmic rays.
  • Conduct experiments aboard the cubesat itself (e.g., looking at genetic mutations caused by exposure to cosmic radiation)-- though this is currently one of the most expensive things you can do with a cubesat.
  • Send/relay data back to Earth. You can do this directly (via relatively low-bandwidth connections) every 90 minutes, for periods of a minute or two (depending on how powerful your equipment is). By 2019 there could be a premium service that relays data to communications satellites-- though this isn't something you can do now.
  • Adjust its motion via remote control. Eventually, if you had a system that allowed for continuous communication between ground stations and cubesats, you could "fly" them continually.


    • Groups of Cubesats

  • Act in a coordinated fashion-- for example, observe a single area from several vantage points thousands of miles apart.
  • Distribute the risks inherent in space launches. The recent loss of the carbon detection satellite during takeoff highlights how a single mechanical problem can destroy years of work. If you can design a swarm of cubesats that have the same capabilities as a big satellite, you can launch them on several rockets, reducing your risk.
  • Tether two or more cubesats together. The idea is that you could use tethers to create large antennas, or hold a group of cubesats in precise formation without having to equip each with its own rockets and navigation system.
  • More easily repair / improve space research platforms. Swarms of cubesats could be repaired or have individual components replaced much more easily than with today's satellites. Fixing the Hubble Space Telescope, for example, is incredibly complicated because even TOUCHING it messes up its orientation. If you had a swarm of cubesats, however, it should be easier to steer one out of its pack, and replace it with another-- without disturbing the rest of the pack. Not only would this make it easier to repair satellites, you could also upgrade them-- something that is extremely hard to do now.

    • Some Notes on Tracking and Broadcasting

    You can only observe / broadcast for a couple minutes because in low-earth orbit you're moving pretty quickly over the earth-- the equivalent on the Earth of about 250 miles per hour. Imagine being in a moving car on a highway: you could observe distant mountains with no problem, study big landmarks for a short period, but would have a really hard time birdwatching.

    You can track things that have radio collars or some other active broadcasting device. One Norwegian cubesat, for example, was designed to monitor signals from caribou radio tracking collars. But it wouldn't be practical to keep track of untagged household objects or people. If you had an optical telescope, for example, you'd have to know where to point it; you'd have the short window every 90 minutes in which to find them; and if there are clouds, or if your subject goes indoors, you won't be able to see them.

    Right now, it's possible to send pictures back from a cubesat, but they're not very high-resolution. Today this is done with the equivalent of ham radio equipment. The kinds of things you could transmit, and the speed at which they'd be sent, all depends on cost. Ten years from now, we're likely to have a variety of options-- relays to other satellites, direct radio broadcasting to listening posts, laser or microwave communication (higher quality but expensive). But it's incredibly unlikely that you'd ever use a cubesat as a personal streaming video server, unless you want to watch videos for 1-2 minutes at a time, every 90 minutes: there will just be too many other options here on earth, starting with having multi-terabyte iPods.

    This suggests that more generally, it's worth asking, "would it be easier to do this on Earth than in space?"