nanosatelites are getting hot
[{"sender": "Seach #8", "recipients": ["Jeffrey Epstein (jeevacation@gmail.com) [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "6/6/2014 2:23:23 PM", "subject": "nanosatelites are getting hot", "body": "http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21603441-where-nanosats-boldly-go-new-businesses-will-followunless-they-\nare-smothered-excessive\n\nTechnology — Full text articles\n\nSatellites: Space: the next startup frontier\nThe Economist\n\nAROUND 1,000 operational satellites are circling the Earth, some of them the size and weight of a large car. In the past\nyear they have been joined by junior offspring: 100 or so small satellites, some of them made up of one or more 10cm\n(4-inch) cubes. They may be tiny, but each is vastly more capable than Sputnik, the first man-made satellite launched\nby Russia in 1957. And many more are coming.\n\nSpace hardware used to cost so much that it was available only to generals, multinationals and the most privileged\nscientists. No more. Many of these nanosats, as small satellites weighing no more than a few kilograms are called,\nhave been launched for small companies, startups and university departments, sometimes with finance raised on\ncrowdfunding websites. Their construction costs can be down in the tens of thousands of dollars, which makes them\nthousands of times cheaper than today’s big satellites. Admittedly, there is much they cannot do, but with that sort of\nprice differential, and some ingenious use of the abilities they do have, they could be surprisingly competitive players on\na number of fronts. In the next five years another 1,000 nanosats are expected to be launched.\n\nTwo trends are setting up nanosats for further success. Like people working on everything from robots to 3D printers,\nnanosat builders are harvesting the benefits of ever better, ever cheaper components built for smartohones and other\nconsumer electronics. Some nanosats even contain complete smartphones, making use of the clever operating\nsystems, radios and cameras which phones now contain. For as long as phones go on getting cheaper and more\ncapable, so will nanosats. The cheapest so far—a tiny chipsat—was assembled for just $25, though it has yet to be\nsuccessfully launched.\n\nThe launch systems too are getting much cheaper. SpaceX, the innovative rocket-maker founded by Elon Musk, has\nalready brought down the costs of getting into space; it and its competitors could reduce them a lot further. The biggest\nbeneficiaries will at first be people who make big satellites. But more big satellites will mean more opportunities for\nsmall satellites to piggy-back on their launches. And some companies are looking at cheap little launch systems tailored\nspecifically to the needs of the nanosatellite. One reason space engineers are notoriously conservative is that the costs\nof failure are high. As making and launching satellites gets cheaper, it will be ever easier for innovative, risk-taking\nnanosat-makers to orbit around the lumbering incumbents.\n\nSize does impose limits. Nanosats cannot peer as closely at the Earth or carry out as many experiments as big\nsatellites. But for some jobs that does not matter. The plans that companies already have include using nanosats for\nmonitoring crops, studying the sun and tracking ships and aircraft. Such a system might have been able to track\nMalaysian Airlines flight MH370, which went missing in March.\n\nNano can do\n\nYet not everyone is thrilled. One worry is that constellations of nanosats will mean a big increase in space junk; but,\noperating in low-Earth orbit, they burn up on re-entry after a year or so. And being cheap, they can soon be replaced\nwith newer models. A more serious concern is that they are a “dual-use” technology: they could be used for military\npurposes. In America this has led to onerous restrictions.\n\nBarack Obama's administration has sensibly repealed a law of 1999 that required all satellites to be licensed by the\nState Department as munitions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). This could mean that most\ncommercial satellites will be removed from ITAR by the end of the year and their export administered by the Commerce\nDepartment. But some satellite systems and spacecraft—including anything that can carry people into space—will\nremain under ITAR."}]