Hackaday Links: December 8, 2019

Now that November of 2019 has passed, it’s a shame that some of the predictions made in Blade Runner for this future haven’t yet come true. Oh sure, 109 million people living in Los Angeles would be fun and all, but until we get our flying cars, we’ll just have …read more

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AMSAT CubeSat Simulator Hack Chat

Join us on Wednesday, December 4th at noon Pacific for the AMSAT CubeSat Simulator Hack Chat with Alan Johnston!

For all the lip service the world’s governments pay to “space belonging to the people”, they did a pretty good job keeping access to it to themselves for the first 50

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Plasma-Powered Thrusters For Your Homebrew Satellite Needs

It seems as though every week we see something that clearly shows we’re living in the future. The components we routinely incorporate into our projects would have seemed like science fiction only a few short years ago, but now we buy them online and have them shipped to us for …read more

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Spain’s First Open Source Satellite

[Fossa Systems], a non-profit youth association based out of Madrid, is developing an open-source satellite set to launch in October 2019. The FossaSat-1 is sized at 5x5x5 cm, weighs 250g, and will provide free IoT connectivity by communicating LoRa RTTY signals through low-power RF-based LoRa modules. The satellite is powered …read more

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NASA's steam-propelled CubeSats control one another in space

NASA's OCSD CubeSats use water/steam for propulsion

CubeSats are tiny spacecraft with huge potential, but their small stature doesn’t lend itself to typical propulsion methods. This has led scientists to get creative in working out ways of shifting them through space, including harnessing photons from the Sun and using regular ol’ H20 as a propellant. NASA’s OCSD mission has now leaned on the latter to pull off a first-of-a-kind maneuver between two of its CubeSats in low-Earth orbit.

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SpaceX steps into the small satellite game with a dedicated rideshare program

The way small satellites and scientific instruments find their way into space these days is generally by hitching a ride on large rockets carrying hefty payloads, wherever they can be squeezed in. But some are looking to change that, with NAS… Continue reading SpaceX steps into the small satellite game with a dedicated rideshare program

Lightsail 2 makes history by using sunlight to propel itself onto a new orbital path

It appears to be all smooth sailing for The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2, with the history-making CubeSat now propelling itself through space on sunlight alone. The nonprofit announced today that after unfurling its solar sail last week, t… Continue reading Lightsail 2 makes history by using sunlight to propel itself onto a new orbital path

LightSail 2 deploys its sail and enters solar surfing mode

After launching into orbit aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket last month, The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 satellite has now entered the most critical phase of its mission. The spacecraft has successfully unfurled its solar sail and begun… Continue reading LightSail 2 deploys its sail and enters solar surfing mode

Mission plans for SULIS solar storms project revealed

Mission plans for SULIS, a UK-led solar project designed to answer fundamental questions about the physics of solar storms, have been revealed. Using a cluster of small, formation-flying satellites known as CubeSats, SULIS will directly measu… Continue reading Mission plans for SULIS solar storms project revealed