Comment by dylan604

Comment by dylan604 13 hours ago

14 replies

View on Hacker News

That's kind of how I was thinking about it. Why does each cubesat project have to start over from scratch? Why isn't there a basic set of projects that a team can build on top of to make their own custom sensors for their purpose, but the basic operational stuff like the suggested multiple storage types with redundant code shouldn't need to be recreated each time. Just continue using what worked, and tweak what didn't. No need to constantly reinvent the wheel just because it's students learning.

Sanzig 12 hours ago

Yep, but students love reinventing the wheel ;).

I agree though, my dream for years has been an open source CubeSat bus design that covers say 80% of academic CubeSat use cases and can be modified by the user for the other 20%. Unfortunately I have very little free time these days with family commitments.

Reply View 10 replies
  • marcosdumay 11 hours ago

    Well, the point of a student's project is to reinvent the wheel.

    One should limit the number of wheels being reinvented each time, though. What would also reduce the time-to-space of those projects. The design should cover 100% of the CubeSat, so the students can redesign any part they want.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • warrenm 12 hours ago

    >Yep, but students love reinventing the wheel ;).

    And ... professors love making students reinvent the wheel

    Reply View 2 replies
    • dylan604 11 hours ago

      I thought professors loved making students by the latest version of the book they wrote discussing how the wheel was invented

      Reply View 1 reply
  • jdiez17 12 hours ago

    Seems like we have similar thoughts as we wrote more or less the same comment 10 minutes apart :) Would love to chat about this, maybe we figure out a way to get there? Email is on my profile.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • Sanzig 9 hours ago

      Email sent. I am generally very busy with family commitments but happy to stay in touch.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • knowaveragejoe 11 hours ago

    > I agree though, my dream for years has been an open source CubeSat bus design that covers say 80% of academic CubeSat use cases and can be modified by the user for the other 20%

    Surely this, or something like it, exists?

    Reply View 1 reply
    • Sanzig 9 hours ago

      Not really. There are a couple of open source projects (LibreCube being the biggest example) but they aren't flight-ready.

      Reply View 0 replies
NoiseBert69 13 hours ago

And it would be much cheaper too.

Imaging a group building an managing a robust power supply design for Cubesats that can be immediately ordered from JLCPCB. With a well maintain BOM list.

Reply View 2 replies
  • jdiez17 13 hours ago

    My dream is to build an open source CubeSat kit (hardware, software, mission control software) with an experience similar to Arduino. Download GUI, load up some examples, and you're directly writing space applications. Ideally should be capable of high end functions like attitude control and propulsion. The problem is that designing and testing such a thing is a rather expensive endeavour. So far I haven't found a way to get funds to dedicate time on this kind of "abstract"/generic project, most funding organizations want a specific mission proposal that ends generating useful data from space.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • warrenm 12 hours ago

      Sounds like you have yourself a YCombinator startup proposal in the making

      Reply View 0 replies