22 Sep Eyes From the Sky: HawkEye 360
HawkEye 360 booth at new space conference in August 2018. Credit: Shen Ge HawkEye 360 booth at new space conference in August 2018. Credit: Shen Ge
HawkEye 360 booth at new space conference in August 2018. Credit: Shen Ge27 Jul Communication from the Sky: Sky and Space Global
A CAD model of a SAS satellite in low earth orbit. Credit: SAS
There are over 5 billion unique mobile subscribers (as of August 2017) in the world. Despite this prevalence, there’s a considerable proportion of the population which lacks this access. The global sphere sees three billion people without access to affordable communication services. Connecting such populations through terrestrial means is a monumental challenge in geographically dispersed regions – Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Sky and Space Global seeks to address the challenge of global communication.
Sky and Space Global (SAS) plans to close the gap in the market between existing satellite communications operators, such as Iridium, Inmarsat and Globalstar, and land-based mobile networks such as Vodafone, Telefonica, Airtel and Safaricom. Affordable mobile services are critical for the economic and social development of many developing countries.
Sky and Space Global is working on a constellation of 200 nanosatellites of the 3U configuration in equatorial or near-equatorial low earth orbit (LEO) for narrowband communications. The total cost of all the satellites is expected to be $150 million. SAS is the first company to consider using nanosatellites for communication.
02 Jul Space: Axiom Space
Commercial Space Station Made by Axiom Space
Axiom Space plans to develop and build the first commercial space station in the world. Credit: Axiom Space
Axiom Space is a Houston-based company established in January 2016 that plans to build the world’s first commercial space station. Axiom Space plans to launch its first space station in 2020, which will be initially docked to the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is currently funded up to 2024 and when it is decommissioned, Axiom’s orbital module will detach and fly freely on its own. Axiom’s station can house eight passengers. One prominent initial market is space tourists that would each pay $55 million for the adventure. Aside from an eight-day stay in space, this cost covers 15 weeks of training, much of it at the Johnson Space Center, a 10-minute drive from Axiom’s headquarters. Thus far, three entities have reserved for on-the-ground training, which starts at $1 million.
The commercial station's interiors are being designed in partnership with famed French architect Philippe Starck, so they'll be quite a bit different from the utilitarian spaces of the ISS. Mr. Starck lined the walls with a padded, quilted, cream-colored, suede-like fabric and hundreds of tiny LED lights that glow in varying hues depending on the time of day and where the space station is floating in relation to the earth.
28 Dec Space: Accion Systems
A New Propulsion System from Accion Systems
- It's modular and can be used in satellites ranging between 2 to 200 kg.
- It's flexible since thruster chips can be placed anywhere on a satellite, in any number.
- It's more efficient since it has higher thrust-to-mass and higher thrust-to-volume.
- It's much less costly since low-cost automated batch manufacturing is used. In one run, they can make 44 thruster chips.
27 Jun Space: Made in Space
Introduction to Made in Space
28 Sep Space: Firefly Space Systems, A Texas Rocket Company
Introduction to Firefly Space Systems
04 Oct Space: Skybox Imaging
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A Silicon Valley startup plans to launch a fleet of high-resolution and cheap imaging satellites. Image: Jeff Lysgaard[/caption]
Want to See the Full Earth in High Resolution?
Who doesn't want to see real-time high-resolution images of our planet? If you have used a service such as Google Earth, you may have been awed by its beautiful depiction of almost any region on our planet. You may even think that the images are real-time or at most just a few days old. Alas, that is not true. Weather satellites which does provide real-time data (updated every few hours) of the entire Earth operates at what's known as geosynchronous orbits (36,000 km from the Earth) and from that distance, can't offer high resolution pictures. Even a global imaging satellite such as NASA's MODIS Terra satellite provides only medium resolution (about 250 meters per pixel). The high-resolution images of Earth beautiful to us and more importantly, useful for government and industry to analyze global shipping, oil spills, crop irrigation, etc., are covered by closer satellites in low earth orbit (several hundred kilometers from the Earth) operated by companies such as GeoEye or DigitalGlobe. Unfortunately, those high-resolution satellites only see small potions of the Earth so there is are complicated algorithms at Google and other satellite image companies to update images with the newest ones and splice them together.
Who is Skybox Imaging?
Skybox Imaging is a high-resolution imaging and data company recently [June 2014] acquired by Google for $500 million. Starting from 2009 when four Stanford university students worked out of a cramped living room, they have grown into a multimillion dollar backed 125-person company in Silicon Valley with their own satellite manufacturing and operations facilities as well as data equipment and software to handle their satellite information. The company designs its own satellites and cameras and partners with others to build and launch them. Prior to their acquisition by Google, they have raised a total of $91 million in three rounds of financing from venture capital companies.
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06 Aug Space: Small Satellite Launchers
Growth of Small Satellite Launchers [caption id="attachment_163" align="alignleft" width="300"]
3 CubeSats deployed from the ISS in 2013. There is a growing small satellite market. Consider reading Small Satellites: Past., Present, and Future for more information. Photo: NASA[/caption]
Universities, government agencies, and small companies are building more and more small satellites. For years, small satellite companies had no choice but to piggyback on larger payloads as rides to space. These companies have to pay exorbitant fees and often have to wait for years before their satellites or their customers' satellites can be launched. However, as satellites grow ever more sophisticated and as electronic components become ever smaller and cheaper, new companies are forming focused on building a greater quantity of small satellites with rapid turnaround times. The small satellite market is projected to grow from $702.4 million in 2014 to $1887.1 million in 2019, a 21.8% growth rate. Yet, currently, no service exists to exclusively serve these small satellites by launching them at an affordable cost and in a timely fashion.
What is a small satellite? A small satellite is a satellite less than or around 500 kilograms in mass. The small satellite market can be further divided into microsatellites, nanosatellites, and CubeSats. Microsatellites range from 10 to 100 kilograms and often work in a constellation to do the task previously completed by a solitary satellite. Nanosatellites range from 1 to 10 kilograms and can include both single and multiple-unit CubeSats as well as other spacecrafts of any form factor within the weight range. CubeSats are 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cube satellites with a maximum mass of 1 kg. These have been mostly used for technology demonstration and education such as solar sails, space tethers, and inflatable antennas.
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15 Jul Space: Mars Sample Return by BoldlyGo Institute
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In 2020, SCIM will embark on a two year journey to Mars to perform a high-speed atmospheric pass collecting tiny dust particles. SCIM will take another half year to return the samples to Earth for detailed analysis. Source: BoldlyGo Institute[/caption]
A nonprofit corporation called BoldlyGo Institute (BGI) is developing a Mars Sample Return mission called the Sample Collection to Investigate Mars (SCIM) which will return the first samples of Martian materials back to Earth. The project is at the preliminary design stage and the goal is ambitious. With a launch date of July 26, 2020, SCIM will journey through space for two years. When it reaches Mars, it will swoop down and collect the dust particles from the Martian atmosphere below 40 km. The SCIM has an aerodynamic aeroshell allowing it to rapidly pass through the atmosphere without being captured by Mars's gravity. The sample capture mechanism for the Mars Sample Return Mission is similar to the successful collection system for the Stardust mission which used aerogel to capture dust particles.
09 Jul Space: Mechanical Launch Vehicle by HyperV
A company called HyperV Technologies Corporation based in Chantilly, Virgina, USA, is working on a mechanical launch vehicle called the Slingatron. The Slingatron is a mechanical hypervelocity mass accelerator which can be used to launch objects (also called payloads) into Earth orbit at a significantly lower cost than what's done today. Just like the early railroads which opened up remote areas here on Earth, the Slingatron mechanical launch vehicle can open up the next frontier, i.e. space. Launching into low earth orbit (LEO) requires accelerating a payload to 7.6 km/sec. Traditional approaches use rocket fuel which is terribly inefficient leading to only about 4% of the rocket mass for payload while the other 96% is for rocket fuel and giant propellant tanks.
Slingatron negates the need for rocket fuel or fuel tanks. The Slingatron does this by a mechanical acceleration approach much like a classical sling. In the traditional case, a man twirls the sling above his head in an outward spiral accelerating the stone. In the Slingatron case, a mechanical motor does the same thing while the payload is on an outwardly spiraling railroad track that is mounted to the mechanical motor.
Interested in more of my posts and other writings outside of Impact Hound? Follow me on Twitter: @shenge86