“We make a whole vehicle that has little pieces dying – it’s like a cut in the skin – you can still operate,” says Talbot Jaeger, founder of the California-based startup which aims to develop a low-cost non-continuous production system with an across-the-globe order delivery timeline of 90 days. So, on one hand, you have a standardized smallsat, and on the other, you have the flexibility of molding it any way you wish to. Think of the HISat (or satlet) as an embryonic human cell (or a Transformer!) that can become whatever it needs to be on demand. So, if one component were to fail, another would take over its function with a few tweaks in the software.Īt NovaWurks, this concept is known as Hyper-Integrated Satlet (HISat) technology. Each of these modules would be equipped with everything a smallsat needs to operate – battery, data processing, propulsion, communications, thermal control, the works. Now imagine, if that satellite’s payload were to be enveloped in identical cubesat modules instead of being integrated with a conventional bus. Even then, the satellite’s lifespan got shortened by a year and the company lost $50 to $70 million in recovery, repair costs, and revenues. It took the talented engineers at Telsat seven whole months to restore the latter through an innovative ground control system.
While the backup guidance system on one of the satellites restored its service some 8 hours later, the second satellite’s backup system simply failed to activate. As a result, the primary gyroscopic guidance system on both the satellites became permanently damaged, making the satellites spin out of control. In January 1994, two of Canada’s Telsat communications satellites became victims of spacecraft charging – a phenomenon where a satellite charges to an electrical potential relative to its surroundings.
0 kommentar(er)
