Smallsats on the Rise
Smallsats on the Rise, Space Quarterly Magazine
“In the last decade, and especially in just the last few years, the pendulum has started to swing back to smaller satellites, at least for some applications. Advances in electronics and the miniaturization of other spacecraft components now make it possible for smaller satellites–weighing from a few hundred kilograms down to as little as a few kilograms–to perform missions that previously required much heavier spacecraft. While there are many applications that will still require large spacecraft, smallsats are carving out a growing share of the market among users in universities, governments, and industry.”
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I’m a big fan of smallsats, but the cynic in my remembers EXACTLY the same article from the late 1980s. Does anyone remember the smallsat conference at the Naval Postgraduate School in 1987? The smallsat hype when Pegasus first flew in 1990? Pardon my skepticism, but the market didn’t develop then, so what’s different now?
Yep, was at the 1990-2007 Small Sat conferences, seen this come and go and come again….
Smallsats are great for education but limited in ability to do real commercial or scientific applications.
There are many people including commercial ventures and researchers who would completely disagree with you.
It’s a bit disappointing this article didn’t mention that the big boys are starting to work on small sats too. Why no mention of the various recent small sats for NASA and the DoD by companies like ATK, Orbital Science & Boeing? What about the TacSat series? What about Boeing’s 3U cubesats; the first of which were delivered _TODAY_?http://www.4-traders.com/TH…