DailyDirt: Satellites For Everyone!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, May 2nd 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Satellites are getting cheaper and cheaper to buy, operate and send up to space. But Oprah isn't giving them away for free to her audience (not yet anyway). Here are just some quick links to stories about satellites.

Tiny, postage stamp-sized satellites are launching with Endeavour to test how they hold up in space. If they work well, these little satellites could be mass produced and littered all over the solar system... [url]
CubeSats have been around for a while, and they could be more mobile with ion drive technology. Electrospraying, FTW! [url]
Maybe someday it won't be an April Fool's joke -- and satellites will actually be cheap enough for charities and humanitarian organizations to buy them and grant free communications to folks all over the world. Unfortunately, this joke just points out that most people don't know how impractical it is to move old satellites around to serve different parts of the world. [url]
It's still a tricky business getting satellites into space -- and hundreds of millions of dollars can be lost when a rocket fails. NASA has recently lost a couple Earth-observing satellites -- the Orbiting Carbon Observatory probe and its Glory probe. [url]
To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: electrospraying, inexpensive space projects, ion drive, satellites
Companies: cubesat, nasa

6 Comments

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slander (profile), 2 May 2011 @ 5:48pm

Glory Probe?
Somebody looking for revenge on some aliens?
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Pixelation, 2 May 2011 @ 5:49pm

Just wait
They're postage stamp sized now but wait until they reassemble themselves into something bigger. Isn't this how the Borg got their start?
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Pixelation, 2 May 2011 @ 5:52pm

Tricky business? Not sure why they don't just take them to the south pole and let them fall into orbit.
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McCrea, 2 May 2011 @ 6:11pm

Shutup, Buttmunch
Huh, huh huh huh, huh, huh. You said "Glory probe".
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TechDan (profile), 2 May 2011 @ 8:44pm

Glory Probe
Perhaps not the best name for a satellite.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 2 May 2011 @ 8:47pm

Throw Yourself At The Ground And Miss
I always thought Douglas Adams� definition of �flying� was a better description of �orbiting� ...
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