University of Toronto researchers see ‘nano’ satellites as the digital imagery answer to kludgy Google Earth.
August 31, 2005 - Researchers at the University of Toronto demonstrated on Wednesday the feasibility of a satellite the size of a milk carton that could breathe new life into an industry that has problems finding applications that it could sustain, considering its peculiar economics.
"A formation of smaller satellites will improve resolution and sensitivity."
-Alex Beattie
|
Small or “nano” satellite technology has excited the space research world because these satellites can now complete missions that were previously possible using only larger and much more expensive spacecraft. The new satellites are a small fraction of the cost of the older models and are much easier to launch.
The Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) satellites being unveiled by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) cost about half a million dollars each, which compares quite favorably to much larger traditional satellites that cost between $200 million and $300 million.
The small, low-powered devices fly in formations that make them suitable for a number of applications, including weather observation, earth observation, and earth imagery, which might interest the people at Google Earth.
Google Earth has generally been well received, but some users have criticized its images as inconsistent in quality and found its technology to be kludgy.
“Google Earth is a kind of amalgamation of different resolutions,” said Alex Beattie, communications engineer with UTIAS. “That’s because they are working on different data sets from different satellites. A formation of smaller satellites will improve resolution and sensitivity. That kind of imagery is one of the applications we are looking to improve.”
Satellite Formations Unformed
Formation flying gained currency some time ago but never got off the ground, literally. Motorola’s Iridium fleet of about 60 satellites was supposed to be the coming-out party for satellite constellations.
“It didn’t go anywhere, mostly because of the cost involved. There has been a swing back to $300-million single satellites,” said Mr. Beattie. “Terrestrial technologies also overtook the market that Iridium had focused on.”
But there are applications that can only be done from space such as weather observation and radar imagery, which would include tracking terrorists and soldiers in wartime. Satellite constellations go a long way toward improving these applications.
“If you need a picture of a specific spot on the earth, you have to wait until the single satellite can get to that point. With a constellation of satellites, you can reduce the time it takes to get that picture,” said Mr. Beattie.
The owner of a constellation of these “nano” satellites can save money on launch costs by piggybacking on the launching of more expensive single satellites.
“When companies are launching large communications satellites, they frequently allow the launching of smaller satellites along with the big ones,” said Mr. Beattie. “With the primary paying most of the cost of the launch, the cost of launching a small satellite is quite low.”
In fact the Pentagon has been looking at smaller satellites to improve its access to intelligence during wartime. But the satellites the military is looking at are micro satellites that are an order of magnitude larger than the “nano” satellite and cost between $15 million and $30 million.
Copyright 2005 Red Herring, Inc.
Source: Red Herring, Inc.
|
