Raspberry Pi computer looks down on Earth

[DirkS]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49584941

The one flying on SSTL's Demonstration of Technology satellite (DoT-1) is the same set-up you would purchase on the High Street. SSTL spent £50.

[DirkS]

https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/latest ... amera-imag

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has today released an image and video of the Earth captured from Low Earth Orbit by a commercial grade Raspberry Pi camera and computer on board a Demonstration of Technology satellite called DoT-1, launched on a Soyuz rocket in July 2019.

[HermannSW]

Not that high:

Pi looks down on earth from 39km high:
"'TED BULL STRATOS': RASPBERRY PI CONTROLLED TEDDY BEAR BABBAGE BEATS FELIX BAUMGARTNER'S SKYDIVING RECORD"
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 85687.html



Much lower, Pi looks down on earth (and me) from 60m high:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 7#p1196344

[Andyroo]

For me, it the cost of the launch and devices thats the winner as taking space back from multi-national corporations and governments could be just what we as a race need.

The problem is that a picture of Earth (though beautiful) has zero impact on people now unless it shows a disaster - I think its become so abstract that folk do not see themselves being impacted.

Now, if we can crack the environmental impact of the launch as well...

[jdb]

Now, if we can crack the environmental impact of the launch as well...

Assuming a kerosene/LOX or methane/LOX first-stage rocket, the 400-odd tons of fuel consumed in a launch is equivalent to what vehicles on the entire United States highway system use in 30 minutes. As the fuel is burned in pure oxygen, it actually generates far less NOx than internal combustion engines do.

Godawful propellants like solid rocket boosters/UDMH on the other hand are potent pollutants.

[Andyroo]

...
Assuming a kerosene/LOX or methane/LOX first-stage rocket, the 400-odd tons of fuel consumed in a launch is equivalent to what vehicles on the entire United States highway system use in 30 minutes.
...

Main issue being is that more goods per Kg of NOx (not not and not nix - corrected TWICE) produced is moved

End of politics from me

It's still great news for the industry (space and computing) as it lets people relate (oh we have those in school / the study) etc.

Also shows how tough thee little boards are Great compliment to the hard work you guys put in all the time since launch (sic) day.

[HermannSW]

Assuming a kerosene/LOX or methane/LOX first-stage rocket, the 400-odd tons of fuel consumed in a launch

Much less fuel is needed to bring stuff to space, whole rocket weight is 2.6t:
https://guinnessworldrecords.com/world- ... est-rocket

The smallest orbital rocket is SS-520-5, measuring 9.54 m (31 ft 3.5 in) tall and 0.52 m (1 ft 8 in) in diameter and weighs 2,600 kg (5,732 lb), achieved by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Japan) in Uchinoura Space Center, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, launched on 3 February 2018.

.... It carried a 3-kg (2 lb 8.7 oz) CubeSat called TRICOM-1R ...

[hippy]

Also shows how tough thee little boards are

It shows they are robust enough to survive travel into space / near space / whatever, but how tough, how long they do survive for, is an entirely different matter.

There have been plenty of microcontrollers, SoC's and SBC's put into orbit pretty much 'as is' which have worked and I wouldn't have expected the Pi to be less robust than any of those.

[jamesh]

...
Assuming a kerosene/LOX or methane/LOX first-stage rocket, the 400-odd tons of fuel consumed in a launch is equivalent to what vehicles on the entire United States highway system use in 30 minutes.
...

Main issue being is that more goods per Kg of NOx (not not and not nix - corrected TWICE) produced is moved

End of politics from me

It's still great news for the industry (space and computing) as it lets people relate (oh we have those in school / the study) etc.

Also shows how tough thee little boards are Great compliment to the hard work you guys put in all the time since launch (sic) day.

It may sound bizarre, but rocket engines are surprising efficient, especially if they are high expansion ratio/high chamber pressure devices. For example the new SpaceX raptor engine. Which is also efficient in other ways as it runs on methane/LOX, and you can make methane from air with enough electricity. (Sabatier reaction). given the SpaceX star ship will need about 1000tons of methane on launch, that's equivalent to about 3000tons of C02 (Might want to check that number, but my googling gave a figure of about three). And some of methane is taken out of the atmosphere in the tanks of the rocket, so you could, theoretically, make rockets carbon negative.

[Andyroo]

I've got visions of a 1,000,000 cows in a big shed with a pipe coming off filling the rocket now

Failing that - maybe I could provide plenty of hot air for the initial lift

Any plans for the Foundation to take part in a DOT satellite? Sorry, forgot for a moment - projects are not announced before they are launched...

Ok - I'll get my hat and coat.

[ejolson]

I've got visions of a 1,000,000 cows in a big shed with a pipe coming off filling the rocket now

Moo. While carbon neutral is nice, after the politics are finished, being nitrogen neutral may be more important. Moo.

I've always been too overprotective of my Pi computers to let them go near outer space. I guess I'm afraid I would never see one again. From this point of view, computers are people too, especially with the evolution of powerful deep-learning convolutional neural networks.

[jamesh]

To give some idea of the size of the new SpaceX rocket, here a comparison. Note that the Saturn 5 (Moon rocket) was/is the biggest rocket built to date. This is why is needs so much fuel.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-e ... 5995a110e5

[Andyroo]

The Falcon XX was supposed to be bigger but that seams to have gone away for now and Starship 2.0 is rumoured to be around 240m tall (well on paper)

The Saturn Five took 140,000 kg (310,000 lb) into LEO compared to the Falcon (BFR) of 100,000 kg (220,000 lb) while each DoT-1 'box' weighs in at 17.5Kg in comparison.

By the way - the original article is here.

[takyon]

The Falcon XX was supposed to be bigger but that seams to have gone away for now and Starship 2.0 is rumoured to be around 240m tall (well on paper)

I would put the 18-meter wide "Starship 2.0" out of mind for now. That is based on a single tweet. The full reusability of the 9-meter wide Starship design is what matters right now, since that will drop the $/kg for payloads dramatically, make the Space Launch System entirely obsolete, and may allow it to compete directly with tiny rockets like Rocket Lab's Electron (fuel is relatively cheap, wasting a rocket stage every launch is expensive). An increase in width to 12 or 18 meters would be nice but don't count on it before the 2030s.

[HermannSW]

An increase in width to 12 or 18 meters would be nice but don't count on it before the 2030s.

The SS-520-5 rocket mentioned in posting
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 0#p1531324

above has diameter 0.5m, and is smallest orbital rocket both in mass and height:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Series_(rocket_family)

[Andyroo]

A bit off topic but here is one inspired future engineer.

https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news ... pe-3280533

No idea if there was a Pi involved (only Pie Face in the Beano when I were a lad with cow pie being from The Dandy - does that date me?)...