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How to Make a CubeSat

orbitalindex.com

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Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#51

Post by Ephil012 »

carrozo wrote: post #49
Ephil012 wrote: post #21

One interesting development in the area of cubesats is that most teams are shifting towards open source designs. In the past, cubesats were mostly using old and expensive hardware (like the pumpkin board). Now a lot of teams are using open source designs like PyCubed and building the electronics themselves. As a result, the price to enter the cubesat space has dropped dramatically. This has enabled a bunch of univers…

Hi there! What kind of photographic resolution of the earth’s surface is possible given the cubesat’s small size?

Depends on the size. If you’re doing a small one (1U) you are probably just getting smartphone quality pictures. The reason why is because in my experience a lot of the electronics and stabilization hardware takes up enough space inside you can’t fit a super large camera system there. Although, I do think there have been upgrades to camera tech recently so maybe you could actually fit something with a decent zoom on earth if you’re careful with how you design it. Although, I doubt something similar in quality to a DSLR camera would be able to fit in a 1U. If you upgrade to bigger sizes you can get satellites that are high enough quality that they could see decently close up to earth. For instance, a bunch of CubeSats are able to get good enough images to monitor deforestation. Another commenter asked a variation of this deep space planets. That’s harder because it’s a much smaller target to aim for in the sky and would probably require a much better camera system.

https://dragonflyaerospace.com/products/ Here is an example of some CubeSat cameras to give you an idea of resolution.

Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#52

Post by Ephil012 »

a_d wrote: post #43
Ephil012 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we are actually adding imagery to our satellite so I think I can answer these pretty well. For question 1, I do think you could use it for astrophotography. You could probably capture pictures of the stars if you have stabilization on the CubeSat. However, the photos would probably be similar to the photos taken of space from the ISS. What I mean by this is you might be able to take photos of the stars, but it wou…

wow! Thank you so much for a detailed response! I learned a lot from your comment. If I may ask another question: do you think the CubeSat ‘form factor’ (10x10x10 cm-cube) can have enough propulsion (combined with some gravtiy-assist) to be able to get into an orbit around another planet or another moon in our solar system? Meaning, can a CubeSat be sent to .. say Titan, as a probe (say a ‘mini-Cassini’). (Just curio…

Oh yeah, forgot but to clarify you might be able to get something better than a smartphone camera with the right sensors and clever space saving in a 1U cubesat. It's just most of the 1Us I have seen don't use anything beyond smartphone level cameras due to their internals (e.g. reaction wheels, computer system, etc) taking up too much space and the fact they don't need something more advanced. Though if you were very clever about laying out the space and removing as many components as possible you could fit a small zoom lens in there and get something better quality. I suspect though there are people who have done this. I just don't think it would be anything super different from existing images taken from the ISS or other things in orbit. If you went for something bigger then maybe you could get something more substantial and get cool images of planets in our solar system close up. A 24 U might be able to pack quite a camera system, but as far as I know the general max size is 12U and anything past that is rare/theoretical. I know though at even a 2U you can get some pretty high quality images of Earth, but I don't know if that would really translate to anything super amazing of space given the distance most planets/stars are. I think those images would still look like they were taken with a high quality smartphone or maybe a dslr camera just due to the fact they are far out (even though technically 2Us pack way better camera systems than most smart phones).

As a whole though these camera system are mostly used for Earth as it's an easier target. Space images are more like astrophotography grade and not Hubble grade.

If you want an example of a good cubesat camera here are some. https://dragonflyaerospace.com/products/ I should note though that these would not generally fit inside a 1U given their smallest one takes up 1U worth of space.

Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#53

Post by tagami »

Ephil012 wrote: post #30
tagami wrote: post #27

Unless you want a specific orbital inclination, or are doing is specifically as an engineering exercise, building a cube lab to be installed on a platform like the ISS means lower complexity and lower cost. You can focus on your research goals AND you can even get your payload back to Earth.

If anyone is curious, I believe the big provider for this is Nanoracks. Never used them ourselves for our CubeSat due to our specific goals. However, they are extremely useful for stuff like sensor data, tech demos, research, and testing.

There are a number of commercial service providers, nanoracks being one of them. It’s best to shop around as they have developed specialized solutions (chip cells, partial/hyper gravity, crystalography, plant bio, etc.)

Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#54

Post by walrus01 »

Ephil012 wrote: post #32
nl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem right. Carbon fibre is price competitive with aluminium.

I haven't really seen this to be the case personally. For a 1/32 thickness 12" x 12" sheet of carbon fiber, it is 35 dollars. This is actually this company's cheapest carbon fiber sheet too at that size. I have seen other companies charge more iirc. https://dragonplate.com/EconomyPlate-Solid-Carbon-Fiber-Shee... Same sheet size / thickness for aluminum is 16 dollars (although I saw a shadier website selling for 12 do…

carbon fiber doesn't come in big billet chunks that you can cnc machine into any shape you want. you either need to fabricate something from pieces of carbon fiber plate (which is available in up to 1cm thicknesses) held together with adhesives and fasteners, or custom-form a carbon fiber piece from your own custom mold, such as if making a carbon fiber road bicycle frame, which has huge upfront costs and is only economical if you intend to sell thousands of units.

Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#55

Post by Ephil012 »

walrus01 wrote: post #54
Ephil012 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't really seen this to be the case personally. For a 1/32 thickness 12" x 12" sheet of carbon fiber, it is 35 dollars. This is actually this company's cheapest carbon fiber sheet too at that size. I have seen other companies charge more iirc. https://dragonplate.com/EconomyPlate-Solid-Carbon-Fiber-Shee... Same sheet size / thickness for aluminum is 16 dollars (although I saw a shadier website selling for 12 do…

carbon fiber doesn't come in big billet chunks that you can cnc machine into any shape you want. you either need to fabricate something from pieces of carbon fiber plate (which is available in up to 1cm thicknesses) held together with adhesives and fasteners, or custom-form a carbon fiber piece from your own custom mold, such as if making a carbon fiber road bicycle frame, which has huge upfront costs and is only eco…

Yeah that is true as well. I talked about this a bit in another comment I made about how much easier aluminum is to work with. The thing is even for the raw sheets it’s still very pricey compared to aluminum which is pretty good at illustrating the price difference. Once you look at molding them into the shape you want the price only goes up.

Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#56

Post by ackbar03 »

Ephil012 wrote: post #50
ackbar03 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great, I've been curious about this for a while, thanks for offering to answer questions! > The solution some open source projects came up with was to just take components from Mouser and run their own radiation tests on it then choose the ones that fared good enough to be used in space. That way they can make satellite boards for way cheaper. Isn't there a requirement for all cube-sats to pass radiation test…

Pretty much what the other commenters said. Nobody cares whether your cubesat lives or dies in orbit. However, the radiation tests done on these open source boards have been quite extensive and there are a bunch of cubesats in orbit with these boards right now. They haven’t died from radiation so it’s generally assumed it’s fine. Even NASA has a project using consumer hardware in orbit (KickSat-2). Anyhow, generally…

Do you have any additional information on how vibration tests are conducted? If there are any industry standards/certificates or anything? What is the procedure you follow at isomer before passing off to launch?

Thanks!

Re: How to Make a CubeSat

#57

Post by nl »

Ephil012 wrote: post #32
nl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem right. Carbon fibre is price competitive with aluminium.

I haven't really seen this to be the case personally. For a 1/32 thickness 12" x 12" sheet of carbon fiber, it is 35 dollars. This is actually this company's cheapest carbon fiber sheet too at that size. I have seen other companies charge more iirc. https://dragonplate.com/EconomyPlate-Solid-Carbon-Fiber-Shee... Same sheet size / thickness for aluminum is 16 dollars (although I saw a shadier website selling for 12 do…

Say it's maybe $200 for carbon fibre vs $50 for Al (the difference isn't that great but being generous).

Either way the raw material price is going to be dwarfed by the labour cost building the enclosure, which are also immaterial in your $50-100k budget.

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