Open Call: propose a CubeSat payload

[p1ayaone1]

To the good people of PF,

I've been working an a few satellite design projects at school, and we are just getting started on one that might actually be launched (in about two years time).

We have lots of ideas, but we're all electrical, mechanical, and computer engineers, and our thinking is biased by that. So we have been approaching the general public, as well and some of the "pure" scientists at school for payload ideas. I though this would be a perfect forum to hear some ideas.

1. Keep it legal. No weapons.
2. Keep it practical. 1 watt, 10 cm cube, 1.33 kg maximum. Small deployables are possible, so long as they remain connected to the satellite.
3. Keep it real. I'd love to build a wormhole-opener, but I don't know how. Not sure if anyone does.

We are looking for points on innovation, environmental stewardship, or industrial applications. It is possible we have primary and secondary payloads.

Any and all ideas are welcome!

 

[bikengr]

To the good people of PF,
<snip>
Any and all ideas are welcome!

I think it could be cool to have night-time infrared thermography of building roofs, to see how much heat they leak. But I don't know if a cubesat is able to broadcast high bandwidth information (power and size issue). Also that could turn into a somewhat unwelcome monitoring tool.

So how about this: Try to develop low power, high bandwidth line of sight communication. [Could the sat modulate the reflectivity of a retro-reflector so almost no power is used to communicate at optical-fiber bandwidths?] Just a proof of concept, only worthwhile if such solutions are not already well known. Such a technology might even be usable for communicating with an extrasolar satellite.

 

[simplex]

There is a Cubesat Forum (see the links):

http://cubesat.ifastnet.com/forum
http://cubesat.ifastnet.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1

Take a look at it and ask questions there. Somebody will help you.