💾 Archived View for gmi.noulin.net › mobileNews › 5120.gmi captured on 2022-06-11 at 21:52:17. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Where nanosats boldly go, new businesses will follow unless they are smothered
with excessive regulations
Jun 7th 2014
AROUND 1,000 operational satellites are circling the Earth, some of them the
size and weight of a large car. In the past year they have been joined by
junior offspring: 100 or so small satellites, some of them made up of one or
more 10cm (4-inch) cubes. They may be tiny, but each is vastly more capable
than Sputnik, the first man-made satellite launched by Russia in 1957. And many
more are coming.
Space hardware used to cost so much that it was available only to generals,
multinationals and the most privileged scientists. No more. Many of these
nanosats, as small satellites weighing no more than a few kilograms are called,
have been launched for small companies, startups and university departments,
sometimes with finance raised on crowdfunding websites. Their construction
costs can be down in the tens of thousands of dollars, which makes them
thousands of times cheaper than today s big satellites. Admittedly, there is
much they cannot do, but with that sort of price differential, and some
ingenious use of the abilities they do have, they could be surprisingly
competitive players on a number of fronts. In the next five years another 1,000
nanosats are expected to be launched (see Technology Quarterly).
Two trends are setting up nanosats for further success. Like people working on
everything from robots to 3D printers, nanosat builders are harvesting the
benefits of ever better, ever cheaper components built for smartphones and
other consumer electronics. Some nanosats even contain complete smartphones,
making use of the clever operating systems, radios and cameras which phones now
contain. For as long as phones go on getting cheaper and more capable, so will
nanosats. The cheapest so far a tiny chipsat was assembled for just $25, though
it has yet to be successfully launched.
The launch systems too are getting much cheaper. SpaceX, the innovative
rocket-maker founded by Elon Musk, has already brought down the costs of
getting into space; it and its competitors could reduce them a lot further. The
biggest beneficiaries will at first be people who make big satellites. But more
big satellites will mean more opportunities for small satellites to piggy-back
on their launches. And some companies are looking at cheap little launch
systems tailored specifically to the needs of the nanosatellite. One reason
space engineers are notoriously conservative is that the costs of failure are
high. As making and launching satellites gets cheaper, it will be ever easier
for innovative, risk-taking nanosat-makers to orbit around the lumbering
incumbents.
Size does impose limits. Nanosats cannot peer as closely at the Earth or carry
out as many experiments as big satellites. But for some jobs that does not
matter. The plans that companies already have include using nanosats for
monitoring crops, studying the sun and tracking ships and aircraft. Such a
system might have been able to track Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, which
went missing in March.
Nano can do
Yet not everyone is thrilled. One worry is that constellations of nanosats will
mean a big increase in space junk; but, operating in low-Earth orbit, they burn
up on re-entry after a year or so. And being cheap, they can soon be replaced
with newer models. A more serious concern is that they are a dual-use
technology: they could be used for military purposes. In America this has led
to onerous restrictions.
Barack Obama s administration has sensibly repealed a law of 1999 that required
all satellites to be licensed by the State Department as munitions under the
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). This could mean that most
commercial satellites will be removed from ITAR by the end of the year and
their export administered by the Commerce Department. But some satellite
systems and spacecraft including anything that can carry people into space will
remain under ITAR.
Care needs to be taken with military kit, but America s regulations still seem
excessive. A regular review to distinguish between systems that pose a real
threat and ones that don t would be a help, as would better intelligence. Tight
restrictions on new technologies will not work, and will damage America s
interests: exciting new ventures like nanosats will simply move to countries
from which they can be launched with greater ease.