Comments on: Taking Payload Orders! http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74 News and opinions from Masten Space about our products, services and the industry in general. Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:57:46 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: mmealling http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-11011 mmealling Thu, 03 Aug 2006 16:51:04 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-11011 evan, Probably not live. But you can take video all the way up and back. But here are some gotchas: 1) the payload bay will only open while in space. That means for much of the launch and reentry you will only see the inside of hte payload bay. As a payload customer you do get a DVD of the flight that includes video from on board cameras. Hope that helps! -MM evan,
Probably not live. But you can take video all the way up and back. But here are some gotchas: 1) the payload bay will only open while in space. That means for much of the launch and reentry you will only see the inside of hte payload bay. As a payload customer you do get a DVD of the flight that includes video from on board cameras. Hope that helps!

-MM

]]> By: evan http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-10941 evan Wed, 02 Aug 2006 21:31:47 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-10941 Is It possible to put a camera in the can to you can get live feedback from the launch and all the way down to recovery? Is It possible to put a camera in the can to you can get live feedback from the launch and all the way down to recovery?

]]> By: Satellite launches going for free at JAXA - Out of the Cradle http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-5471 Satellite launches going for free at JAXA - Out of the Cradle Thu, 11 May 2006 01:19:32 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-5471 [...] If you don’t think you can make the cut, can’t afford a regular launch (yet), and still want to fly something to space, you might want to consider a CanSat or a PongSat in the meantime. [...] [...] If you don’t think you can make the cut, can’t afford a regular launch (yet), and still want to fly something to space, you might want to consider a CanSat or a PongSat in the meantime. [...]

]]> By: Wouter Vijvers http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-5078 Wouter Vijvers Fri, 21 Apr 2006 07:26:16 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-5078 Jon, Michael, just a little piece of info I thought you might like. It seems like word of your payload offerings spreads well! This morning I picked up a well-read (plm 500000 daily) dutch newspaper. It featured a (short) article ON THE FRONT PAGE about you guys offering CanSats. You can read the paper (well, if your dutch is good enough ;) at http://www.metronieuws.nl/index.php?actie=krantvanvandaag (free reg required). I haven't checked, but it might then also be in other editions of Metro (global reach 18.5 million/day!). Keep up the good work, guys! Jon, Michael, just a little piece of info I thought you might like. It seems like word of your payload offerings spreads well! This morning I picked up a well-read (plm 500000 daily) dutch newspaper. It featured a (short) article ON THE FRONT PAGE about you guys offering CanSats. You can read the paper (well, if your dutch is good enough ;) at http://www.metronieuws.nl/index.php?actie=krantvanvandaag (free reg required). I haven’t checked, but it might then also be in other editions of Metro (global reach 18.5 million/day!).

Keep up the good work, guys!

]]> By: Dru http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-5002 Dru Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:50:25 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-5002 Some thoughts and questions related to this, very energizing prospect. The choice of power and data bus will dictate some of the potential project details, IMHO, so solidifying what you are and are not providing from a common services standpoint would be helpful. Also, I would think information about restrictions in terms of payload behavior and vacuum-rating the payloads might be useful. I wouldn't want "my" payload to be negatively impacted by someone else's faulting and taking its neighbors out in the process. I'd love to have triggered events to the payloads (launch, apogee, etc), but can see where you really start getting out of providing a common utility framework and get into a lot of "fiddling". What would the timeframe for payload delivery be? One, three or six months prior? How about data recovery and payload recovery? Would payload customers be able to be present at the facility (non-operations area) for launch/recovery (hey, we can dream)? Will you have requirements on payload motor actions (gyro impacts), radio/wireless frequency use? If the payload fits within the normalized CanSat profile, outside of mass budget, will there be customization charges for that as well? Have you folks thought about a common Masten-Space payload users forum? People might want to collaborate on projects. Just a thought. Looking forward more news, and hoping that Space Access is good this year. --Dru Some thoughts and questions related to this, very energizing prospect.

The choice of power and data bus will dictate some of the potential project details, IMHO, so solidifying what you are and are not providing from a common services standpoint would be helpful.

Also, I would think information about restrictions in terms of payload behavior and vacuum-rating the payloads might be useful. I wouldn’t want “my” payload to be negatively impacted by someone else’s faulting and taking its neighbors out in the process.

I’d love to have triggered events to the payloads (launch, apogee, etc), but can see where you really start getting out of providing a common utility framework and get into a lot of “fiddling”.

What would the timeframe for payload delivery be? One, three or six months prior? How about data recovery and payload recovery? Would payload customers be able to be present at the facility (non-operations area) for launch/recovery (hey, we can dream)?

Will you have requirements on payload motor actions (gyro impacts), radio/wireless frequency use?

If the payload fits within the normalized CanSat profile, outside of mass budget, will there be customization charges for that as well?

Have you folks thought about a common Masten-Space payload users forum? People might want to collaborate on projects. Just a thought.

Looking forward more news, and hoping that Space Access is good this year.
–Dru

]]> By: jongoff http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-5000 jongoff Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:01:37 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-5000 Andrew, What kind of information do you want? The apogee target we're claiming for XA-1.0 is only a bit over 100km, though that has a bit of margin in it, and XA-1.5 is targetting 250-500km. Peak G's will likely be on reentry, so I'm not sure if we have a very good handle on what those will be yet. Could be as bad as 3-8G, depending on what altitude, etc. More details will be coming out in the payload users guide and the FAQ. Or you could just corner us at Space Access and pick our brains there. :-) ~Jon Andrew,
What kind of information do you want? The apogee target we’re claiming for XA-1.0 is only a bit over 100km, though that has a bit of margin in it, and XA-1.5 is targetting 250-500km. Peak G’s will likely be on reentry, so I’m not sure if we have a very good handle on what those will be yet. Could be as bad as 3-8G, depending on what altitude, etc. More details will be coming out in the payload users guide and the FAQ. Or you could just corner us at Space Access and pick our brains there. :-)

~Jon

]]> By: Andrew Case http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-4993 Andrew Case Sun, 16 Apr 2006 21:56:02 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-4993 What sort of flight profile are we looking at? What sort of flight profile are we looking at?

]]> By: mmealling http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-4992 mmealling Sun, 16 Apr 2006 21:43:25 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-4992 Hi Ben! We're going to investigate some of that but we like some of the high bandwidth applications of USB 2.0 for data storage. We're expecting several of the payload types to want to store image data (telescopes, microscopes, etc) and they all universally use USB to access their high speed storage. Its probably going to have a lot to do with the power requirements and the capabilities of the users and who they get their parts from... But yea, we're investigating all of that. -MM Hi Ben!
We’re going to investigate some of that but we like some of the high bandwidth applications of USB 2.0 for data storage. We’re expecting several of the payload types to want to store image data (telescopes, microscopes, etc) and they all universally use USB to access their high speed storage. Its probably going to have a lot to do with the power requirements and the capabilities of the users and who they get their parts from… But yea, we’re investigating all of that.

-MM

]]> By: Ben Reytblat http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-4971 Ben Reytblat Fri, 14 Apr 2006 19:29:51 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-4971 Hi, Jon, Would it be possible to sub USB with Ethernet? Especially with Power Over Ethernet capability? You can use an off-the-shelf managed Ethernet switch (http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1134690842395&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper ) to provide both. This way, you can send events/triggers to the payloads (Countdown, Engine Cutoff, Apogee, Landing, or whatever else), and also collect data back. All via very simple HTTP commands, in both directions. This should be well supported by most Linux-based single chip microcontrollers. Hi, Jon,

Would it be possible to sub USB with Ethernet? Especially with Power Over Ethernet capability? You can use an off-the-shelf managed Ethernet switch (http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1134690842395&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper ) to provide both. This way, you can send events/triggers to the payloads (Countdown, Engine Cutoff, Apogee, Landing, or whatever else), and also collect data back. All via very simple HTTP commands, in both directions. This should be well supported by most Linux-based single chip microcontrollers.

]]> By: jongoff http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74&cpage=1#comment-4969 jongoff Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:46:55 +0000 http://masten-space.com/blog/?p=74#comment-4969 Dave, <i>You’re getting the price low enough that I think you’ll start seeing a lot more people like me- I don’t have any particular need to launch something into space, but if the barriers to entry are low enough I can come up with a fun project.</i> Yeah, that's what we're hoping. Invention can sometimes be the mother of Neccessity. :-) As for live telemetry and real-time remote control from ground (so you can control an experiment in-flight), that might be something we could provide along with the datalogging. We'll have to see if we can handle that with the other radio communications we need to do for control and range safety stuff. But I could see why that feature would be useful. Thanks for the suggestion. As for guestimates on the freefall duration, that will depend a lot on what our maximum altitude is. For XA-1.0, we're targetting 100km, so that will give something on the order of 2-5 minutes of free-fall on a ~10-15 minute long flight. As we move toward XA-1.5, we're targetting a lot higher altitude, so the free-fall duration of the flight will go up into the (I think) 5-10 minute range. As we get closer to market, we'll put together a payload users guide for paying customers, and we'll probably put some of that info in the public FAQ as well. ~Jon Dave,
You’re getting the price low enough that I think you’ll start seeing a lot more people like me- I don’t have any particular need to launch something into space, but if the barriers to entry are low enough I can come up with a fun project.

Yeah, that’s what we’re hoping. Invention can sometimes be the mother of Neccessity. :-)

As for live telemetry and real-time remote control from ground (so you can control an experiment in-flight), that might be something we could provide along with the datalogging. We’ll have to see if we can handle that with the other radio communications we need to do for control and range safety stuff. But I could see why that feature would be useful. Thanks for the suggestion.

As for guestimates on the freefall duration, that will depend a lot on what our maximum altitude is. For XA-1.0, we’re targetting 100km, so that will give something on the order of 2-5 minutes of free-fall on a ~10-15 minute long flight. As we move toward XA-1.5, we’re targetting a lot higher altitude, so the free-fall duration of the flight will go up into the (I think) 5-10 minute range. As we get closer to market, we’ll put together a payload users guide for paying customers, and we’ll probably put some of that info in the public FAQ as well.

~Jon

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