Amateur/Student Satellite, Space Systems

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – April.29.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:

** CubeSat built by undergraduate students at Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani in India will include an advance imaging system: BITS Pilani students inch closer to nano-sat launch – AsianAge.com

Mentored by experts from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), undergraduate students at Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani, are inching closer to their dream of designing and launching a nano-satellite or cubesat — of the size of a shoebox – with a special camera that will help study the earth’s surface for response during natural hazards and track carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The country’s first student-run undergraduate research group, which is on a mission to launch a one-of-its-kind nano-satellite with hyperspectral imager, has been christened Team Anant. It has 40 members across all engineering branches and batches at the Rajasthan-based institute.

** Students at Rensselaer Polytechnique Institute (RPI) are building OSCaR (Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal) smallsat to test techniques for de-orbiting space debris

OSCaR (Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal) is a 3U CubeSat in development at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that aims to de-orbit space debris.

From the RPI article:

… [Professor Kurt] Anderson and his students are developing OSCaR, a small device that will be able to inexpensively be sent into space aboard larger vehicles and then released to nearly autonomously seek out, capture, and then de-orbit space debris.

OSCaR is a three-unit member of a class of very small satellites known as CubeSats. Each unit is a small and light 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cube.

One of those CubeSat units will house the “brains” of OSCaR including GPS, data storage, and communication, as well as the power and thermal management systems. Another will hold propellant and the system’s propulsion module to drive OSCaR forward. The third unit will contain four gun barrels, nets, and tethers to physically capture debris, one piece at a time. This capture module will also have optical, thermal, and RADAR imaging sensors to help OSCaR locate debris in the vastness of its surrounding space.

After it is done collecting debris, OSCaR will be programmed to deorbit itself within five years, destroying itself and the debris it caught.

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-118 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • AMSAT 50th Anniversary Issue of AMSAT Journal Available For All
  • PHL-Microsat Issues Diwata-2 Amateur Radio Unit Service Announcement
  • Coronation Station HS10KING/mm On Geostationary Satellite
  • SatNOGS Satellite Ground Station Article in HackSpace Magazine
  • AMSAT South Africa Developing AfriCUBE SDR-based CubeSat
  • Interview with Peter Gülzow, AMSAT-DL President
  • PSAT2, ISS Sat Gate needed in Central America
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • ARISS News
  • Shorts From All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

====

Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – April.29.2019

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:

Webcasts:

** The Space Show – Fri, 04/26/2019 – Umberto Cavallaro talked about his book, The Race to the Moon Chronicled in Stamps, Postcards, and Postmarks: A Story of Puffery vs. the Pragmatic, and about “documenting early space history through stamps, USSR propaganda, US stamp approach and more”.

** Lucy in the Sky With Asteroids | The Planetary Society

A rare alignment of planets and other objects will enable the solar-powered Lucy spacecraft to examine seven asteroids, six of which are among the thousands of Trojan asteroids that orbit ahead of and behind Jupiter. The mission team, include Hal Levison, Cathy Olkin and Mike Sekerak, hope to unlock secrets of our solar system’s origin through these ancient artifacts. Planetary Society correspondent Andrew Jones helps us celebrate China’s Space Day with an update on the Chang’e 4 lunar mission. The space trivia contest returns as just one cog in the universe-spanning machine called What’s Up.

** April 25, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

===

 

 

Space Arts

Space art roundup – April.27.2019

** The Humans In Space Youth Art Competition, is sponsored by the SciArt Exchange:

We are calling on the generation who will take the next giant steps into space. If you are between 10-18 years old, help shape ideas for the future of space exploration with the international Humans In Space Youth Art Competition.

Create artwork that is musical, literary, visual or video that expresses your ideas and inspiration for a new generation living, working and doing science on the Moon. What will it look like, sound like, and feel like?

Winning artwork selected by an international panel of artists, scientists, teachers, engineers and astronauts will be displayed through a worldwide tour, beginning with a kickoff event in the Vortex Dome in Los Angeles, California in August 2019.  The first place visual and literary artworks will receive $250 US, and the first place video and musical artworks will receive $500 US.

Submissions are due May 15, 2019, 23:59 US CT

CONTEST DETAILS

** Winning entries in the 9th Annual Space Foundation International Student Art Contest are on display on line.

Rui Xi of Malaysia – 1st Place, 3 – 4 Years Old

As noted here last fall, the contest was sponsored this year by Firefly Aerospace.

Xinyi Christine of U.S.A. – Space Achievement Award, 13 – 14 Years Old

** A children’s art contest was part of China Aerospace Day for 2019 in Changsha, Hunan. An event held on April 24th that included a display of works from those

… participating in the collection of the 8th Space Painting Creation of My Space Dream.  The event was jointly sponsored by the China Aerospace Society and the Hunan Provincial Department of Education. As one of the 2019 China Aerospace Science Popularization Series activities, the event received positive responses from young people across the country. [Google translation]

Check out some of the entries.

“You and I Walked Into Space” by HanJiaxin

 

Dreaming of Space by Dai Jiayi

** The Peanuts Project at the Space Center Houston was organized by the Peanuts Global Artist Collective. Here is a press release about the project:

Space Center Houston Opened a Peanuts-Inspired Art Installation
Honoring the Apollo 10 Mission  

HOUSTON, April 26, 2019 – See it now! Space Center Houston opened a new art installation featuring Charles Schulz’s iconic characters in a new groundbreaking arts initiative launch event. This art initiative is a partnership between Peanuts Worldwide, the Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Parks Board, Space Center Houston and Brookfield Properties designed to bring Houstonians public art re-imaginings of Charles M. Schulz’s beloved, iconic characters.

To kick-off the launch of the exhibit, Houston-area students and the guests engaged in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities developed by Peanuts to learn about how NASA explores the cosmos, and the beloved character Snoopy made an appearance.

The “Peanuts Constellation” mural by artist Kenny Scharf.

At the entrance of Space Center Houston, the outdoor art installation features a full-scale International Space Station Training Module wrapped in an original Charlie Brown and Snoopy Motif by artist Kenny Scharf. Entitled “The Heavens and the Earth,” the art installation honors NASA’s 50th Anniversary celebrations of Apollo 10. NASA and Peanuts have a longstanding partnership. NASA named the Apollo 10 command and lunar modules “Charlie Brown” and “Snoopy,” respectively. (Apollo 10, which orbited the moon, served as a dress rehearsal for the historic Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969.)

Featuring artwork by four of the world’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, the larger-than-life installations will continue on as “The Heavens and the Earth” Public Art Project with the Houston Arts Alliance Blasts Off, bring Insta-Worthy, Peanuts-inspired creations to Houston’s Public Parks and across the city’s most popular landmarks.

The Peanuts Global Artist Collective, presented by Peanuts Worldwide, launched a year ago with an ambitious public art initiative spanning seven international cities: Paris, Seoul, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo and Mexico City. Curated by the esteemed, leading art curators at Culture Corps, the project features the work of seven elite artists. Four of them—Nina Chanel Abney, AVAF, FriendsWithYou and Kenny Scharf—will pepper their creations throughout Houston.

For the latest news and openings in Houston and beyond, fans can log on to Peanuts Global Artist Collective. And to participate in the project, residents of and visitors to Houston are encouraged to pose in front of the murals (as thousands of others around the world have), and post to their own Insta using the hashtags #SnoopyGlobalArt and #PeanutsHTX.

===

More at Snoopy, Charlie Brown wrap space station node in new art installation | collectSPACE.

====

The Race to the Moon Chronicled in Stamps, Postcards, and Postmarks:
A Story of Puffery vs. the Pragmatic (Springer Praxis Books)

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, SpaceCasts

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – April.26.2019

A new episode of NASA’s weekly Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** The CRS-17 science and technology payloads set to go to the ISS next week aboard a SpaceX Cargo Dragon:

** Living and Working in Space: Microbes

As we search beyond Earth, microbes play a key role in the space environment. Researchers analyze single celled organisms like bacteria and fungi to help uncover important facts that will support deep-space missions. Along with understanding how microbes adapt and react on the International Space Station, scientist stress the importance of planetary protection. The goal of protecting Earth from potentially harmful microbes are important to human survival and the universe at large.

** Expedition 59 Inteviews with Army News Service KCTS and KUOW Radio April 24, 2019:

====

Uncategorized

Space policy roundup – April.26.2019

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:

Webcasts:

** China in Space: A Strategic Competition? | U.S.-CHINA – Senate hearing on April 25, 22019:

Unable to see this video? Click here.

** The Space Show – Mon, 04/22/2019 – Daniel Suarez discussed his new science fiction novel, Delta-v, and “deep space mining, space economics, commercial space, policy and regulations, government space activities, risk taking, lunar return, Mars and much much more”.

** The Space Show – Tue, 04/23/2019 – Jeffrey Smith talked about his two recent booster series articles on The Space Review (Part 1 and Part 2) and “also talked rocket and booster history, returning to the Moon and more”.

** Constellations, a New Space and Satellite Innovation Podcast: 48 – Explosion in VC Funding, The Year of Commercial Space Travel and Earth Observation for Everyone –

Investment in the satellite and space industry has evolved from traditional government sources to backing by a couple of billionaire Unicorn investors, and now to an explosion in venture capital and angel investors driving the industry. This new wave of funding has taken the industry from a dozen or so privately funded space companies globally in 2009 to 435 today, that have received over $20 billion in investment. Chad Anderson, CEO of Space Angels discusses many of the exciting trends occurring in the space industry including where investment funding is going, and more importantly why. He talks about his prediction that 2018 would be the year of SmallSat and that 2019 will be the year of Commercial Space Travel. Chad also discusses the potential for earth observation to follow the path of GPS and become tightly intertwined in our everyday lives.

** April 23, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

https://audioboom.com/posts/7242649-spacex-man-rated-dragon-capsule-suffers-an-anomaly-in-tests-bob-zimmerman-behindtheblack-com

====

====

Outpost in Orbit: A Pictorial & Verbal History of the Space Station

Everyone can participate in space