KickSat -- Your personal spacecraft in space!

[websterling 12]

Came across this and thought others might find it interesting:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/251588730/kicksat-your-personal-spacecraft-in-space

 

Check out this question in the FAQ at the bottom of the page-

"If I donate enough to receive a developers kit can I really fly my own code?"

 

A paper on the concept:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/satellites/exploring-space-with-chipsized-satellites

 

The Cornell site where the concept originated:

http://www.spacecraftresearch.com/MII/MII_overview.html

[MarkoeZ 68]

Omg, i thought an MSP on my wrist was nerdy, but your own msp430 in space

 

Thanks for the links, very interesting project!

 

P.s. Since the craft operates on an MSP430, why is this in the off topic section? I think it deserves more attention.

[bluehash 1,581]

Maybe we should do a 43oh community sprite. Members pay a few dollars(~$5) and selects a team to work on the project. Just a suggestion

[MarkoeZ 68]

Maybe we should do a 43oh community sprite. Members pay a few dollars(~$5) and selects a team to work on the project. Just a suggestion

 

Sounds good, but you'd need to raise $1000 dollar. I don't think there are 200 active members willing to pay. Then again, there might be some willing to pay more. I would, but cant. Would pay the fiver though

 

 

Edit: Hmm, missed this the first read:

Because we will only launch KickSat into a low-altitude orbit, we can guarantee that all of the Sprites will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere within a few days or weeks, leaving no trace of space debris

 

Thats a shame...

[websterling 12]

For what it's worth- Hack a Day just picked up on this!

 

http://hackaday.com/2011/10/11/send-a-satellite-into-space-for-300/

[bluehash 1,581]

TTT.

Launched yesterday, Friday the 18th, 3:25 PM EDT.

[DrMag 14]

This launch brings up an interesting question I've had on my mind for some time... how well do we expect these things to perform in space? At the altitude and expected lifetimes for these little guys, I expect they'll be fine. I bring it up simply because I recall finding a report somewhere (I'll have to dig it up...) that a group did some cursory radiation testing of the MSP430, and found they are actually quite robust.. even without being designed to be rad-hard. If I ever get the chance, I'd love to throw a couple into a radiation test and do something a little more thorough. Maybe someday we'll get to land one on the moon. 

[spirilis 1,265]

This launch brings up an interesting question I've had on my mind for some time... how well do we expect these things to perform in space? At the altitude and expected lifetimes for these little guys, I expect they'll be fine. I bring it up simply because I recall finding a report somewhere (I'll have to dig it up...) that a group did some cursory radiation testing of the MSP430, and found they are actually quite robust.. even without being designed to be rad-hard. If I ever get the chance, I'd love to throw a couple into a radiation test and do something a little more thorough. Maybe someday we'll get to land one on the moon. 

Not sure but from what I've read, the FRAM MCUs are supposed to be even nicer; given that the FRAM memory tech itself doesn't rely on stored capacitance like Flash/EEPROM.  Weakness with FRAM and probably the rest of them is mainly the transistor circuitry...

@@Rickta59 showed me this PDF which talks about that: http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/16181.pdf

[jpnorair 340]

I bring it up simply because I recall finding a report somewhere (I'll have to dig it up...) that a group did some cursory radiation testing of the MSP430, and found they are actually quite robust.. even without being designed to be rad-hard.

Yes, although the parts in question were 1-series MSP430s.  The MSP430 was part of a radio tag that was being mounted onto canisters of Plutonium and Uranium recovered from Eastern-Bloc nuclear weapons and submarines.  The project was from the Department of Energy, managed by Argonne National Lab.  If I remember correctly, the expected mean-time of failure was 17 years, given typical conditions for that application.

 

I know this, because I was one of the guys who sold DoE/ANL on the tag platform.    The ANL team was great, and they published a lot of their work.

[bluehash 1,581]

Yes, although the parts in question were 1-series MSP430s.  The MSP430 was part of a radio tag that was being mounted onto canisters of Plutonium and Uranium recovered from Eastern-Bloc nuclear weapons and submarines.  The project was from the Department of Energy, managed by Argonne National Lab.  If I remember correctly, the expected mean-time of failure was 17 years, given typical conditions for that application.

 

I know this, because I was one of the guys who sold DoE/ANL on the tag platform.    The ANL team was great, and they published a lot of their work.

That is good to know! Is there a writeup on this?

[jpnorair 340]

That is good to know! Is there a writeup on this?

Here is an overview.

http://rampac.energy.gov/docs/rfid/RFID-INMM09.pdf

 

Edit:

Here is an article specifically describing the irradiation process. (see page 42)

http://rampac.energy.gov/docs/rfid/Paper1.pdf