SEDSAT-2 Meeting Transcript 20070104

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Tom Nordheim says:

this is Per Magnus btw....

Per-Magnus says:

/wave Hello

Kirk Kittell says:

hello hello

Kirk Kittell says:

I'm Kirk

Per-Magnus says:

ok, I'm a student in the army atm - 19 years and from Norway

Tom Nordheim says:

he's also considering going to aberystwyth next year actually

Kirk Kittell says:

are you taking the whole country w/ you?

Tom Nordheim says:

(

Per-Magnus says:

yeah, poor HiN is having a hard time after Tom went there

Tom Nordheim says:

hoping for a Norwgian takeover of that perticular progra, yes

Tom Nordheim says:

HiN=university college of Narvik

Tom Nordheim says:

I have started the nudging, so let's see if someone responds

Kirk Kittell says:

we'll wait for a little bit -- it's a different time and day, so I'm sure there will be confusion

Kirk Kittell says:

however.... I know it's late over there

Tom Nordheim says:

do you have any payload suggestions per?

Tom Nordheim says:

http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/SEDSAT-2_Mission_Feasibility_Study

Tom Nordheim says:

these are the current one

Tom Nordheim says:

s

Per-Magnus says:

Well, I've read a bit about your project. Only suggestion I came up with (except for the boring ones) is to do a hotel payload

Tom Nordheim says:

yes we've been discussing that

Kirk Kittell says:

hmmm... you might have to explain that one to me

Tom Nordheim says:

rent a payload space for someone else

Kirk Kittell says:

I picture stuffing a bunch of ants in a box and launching it

Tom Nordheim says:

a univ doing experiments etc...

Tom Nordheim says:

or a company testing something

Kirk Kittell says:

do you have an idea to find the payload?

Kirk Kittell says:

since this is quite open source, something like that seems feasible

Tom Nordheim says:

like for example, we could build a space "bus": complete cubesat, with necessary comm, OBDH etc and an open payload compartment

Tom Nordheim says:

so that we could have two payloads, one that we design ourselves and one rented out to a university or company

Kirk Kittell says:

one satellite or two satellites?

Tom Nordheim says:

one

Tom Nordheim says:

but with two payload compartments

Tom Nordheim says:

or slots or whatever

Kirk Kittell says:

ok, I was going to say that -- I think many of these payloads are small

Kirk Kittell says:

but other factors like pointing, power, temperature are important

Tom Nordheim says:

my design proposal for the camera system on the HiNcube project was very small for example

Tom Nordheim says:

SoC + camera chip + a small lens

Geoff Hilton says:

!

Geoff Hilton says:

was there supposed to be a meeting?

Kirk Kittell says:

Tom Nordheim says:

given that kind of payload, you could probably easily include something else

Tom Nordheim says:

yes

Kirk Kittell says:

don't mind him -- he's Canadian

Geoff Hilton says:
checks e-mail again* 0.o
Geoff Hilton says:

Kirk Kittell says:

I like the idea Tom, but should we wait until later in the design for that?

Tom Nordheim says:

still nudging lav, I spoke to her at 0500 GMT this morning, but I suppose she might be sleeping now

Kirk Kittell says:

perhaps work on our payload, and then use the constraints for that to find a second payload

Tom Nordheim says:

yes

Geoff Hilton says:

eh, so I had some questions

Geoff Hilton says:

let me see if I can recall them...

Kirk Kittell says:

are they about payload?

Kirk Kittell says:

if not, we'll come to that in a few minutes -- we're on the payload part of the agenda

Geoff Hilton says:

well, the onboard computer, for starters

Geoff Hilton says:

okay, I'm gonna go brush my teeth then

Geoff Hilton says:

expecting someone *very* soon

Kirk Kittell says:

haha, no no, you should talk about payload

Kirk Kittell says:

I'm not sending you away

Kirk Kittell says:

just helping you organize your brain

Geoff Hilton says:

Tom Nordheim says:

too late?

Geoff Hilton says:

almost hehe

Tom Nordheim says:

have you looked any more at what we discussed?

Geoff Hilton says:

the Atmel8 board?

Tom Nordheim says:

yes the atmel chip(s)

Kirk Kittell says:

I read what you added recently to the MFS, but did not read the last transcript

Geoff Hilton says:

err, chip(s), right

Geoff Hilton says:

it looks dandy to me, I've been wondering especially about the redundancy issue

Tom Nordheim says:

well, we could always hard-wire two MCUs

Tom Nordheim says:

with simple logic to switch between them

Tom Nordheim says:

so that we always had one as a backup

Tom Nordheim says:

this would require some extra space though...

Geoff Hilton says:

yeah, and there would be one on each satellite? (if we go with the double satellite that Mike suggested)

Tom Nordheim says:

I wouldn't want to be the one routing that

Kirk Kittell says:

by space do you mean volume?

Tom Nordheim says:

no not two satellites

Tom Nordheim says:

yes

Geoff Hilton says:

10x10x5?

Kirk Kittell says:

10x10x20 is the double satellite

Per-Magnus says:

imo thats the best solution, since you always will have a backup chip (in case the controller itself is damaged) and you will have a possibility to switch to a backup firmware without uploading a new

Kirk Kittell says:

like ION

Geoff Hilton says:

yeah, Mike was suggesting 2 10x10x5 sats though

Tom Nordheim says:

by two I mean two identical MCUs , which can be overridden using a simple circuit

Kirk Kittell says:

k

Tom Nordheim says:

in case of failure in the main mcu

Geoff Hilton says:

yeah

Kirk Kittell says:

cool -- has that been used on previous cubesats?

Tom Nordheim says:

I don't think so....

Geoff Hilton says:

I'm big on redundancy, especially if the two chips in question are physically separated enough to make it worthwhile (in case something smacked the satellite, we wouldn't want it to hit both chips, type of thing...) ?

Per-Magnus says:

the redundancy is required, you cant have everything relying on one chip functioning

Kirk Kittell says:

great -- we have a paper topic to write about now for a conference

Tom Nordheim says:

it became a concern when we were considering an FPGA-based system last year, which is especially frail

Tom Nordheim says:

but it's really something that every cube should implement

Tom Nordheim says:

many cubes have failed after all, and I bet at least some of those were because of MCU-related issues

Per-Magnus says:

also taking redundancy as a serious issue would look very good compared to other sats ;>

Kirk Kittell says:

hmm -- it would be very useful if you could prove mathematically that this decreases system risk

Geoff Hilton says:

aye, that's why I'm a redundancy fanboy

Kirk Kittell says:

verbally, it makes sense

Geoff Hilton says:

mathematically?

Per-Magnus says:

its logical though, because if you upload a new firmware to the controller - and there's an error in the firmware you have to be able to switch to something working. hence the backup controller

Kirk Kittell says:

yes, logically makes sense is what I mean (not verbally)

Tom Nordheim says:

or in the event of an SEU corrupting the firmware(again fpgas are esp vulnarable to this)

Geoff Hilton says:

beyond "if one fails, the other one kicks takes over via the watchdog timer's bark, then attempting to restart the failed MCU" ?

Kirk Kittell says:

Geoff, mathematically meaning that you can calculate statistically over a whole system how likely it is to fail

Geoff Hilton says:

oh, gotcha

Per-Magnus says:

and having another controller is not a problem, you can build it so it doesnt consume any extra power. the only issue is making the board more complex - but this shouldnt be a problem since you already need a multilayered board

Geoff Hilton says:

taking into account code fragility as well as hardware? or just hardware?

Tom Nordheim says:

well having two controllers also enable us to reprogram one of them without risking the whole mission

Geoff Hilton says:

well, the atmel8 has a watchdog timer

Tom Nordheim says:

if any critical sw errors are discovered post launch

Per-Magnus says:

nah, its both. for some reason (previous ESD etc etc) a chip can fail. so you cant have everything relying on one mcu - especially not when it controls pretty much every process in the cube

Geoff Hilton says:

is a watchdog timer dedicated to watching one system? or can it poll multiple/all systems?

Tom Nordheim says:

what do you mean by system?

Tom Nordheim says:

it watches the chip in question

Per-Magnus says:

a watchdog timer works for one controller. if a process hangs on that controller (and the software is made right) it will restart the program - but this doesnt mean it will eliminate every software mistake. it only eliminates the possibility of a single-line-error (or similar)

Geoff Hilton says:

err, say, the two main CDH MCUs, followed by the other subsystems (Communications, etc)

Tom Nordheim says:

they would have their own chips with their own watchdog timers, at least that's what I would assume

Tom Nordheim says:

but you could write a simple process that could reboot the comm mcu/dsp/whatever in the main MCU too

Geoff Hilton says:

ok so the watchdog timer on one controller polls it, realizes it's scrapped, and tells another controller to take over (this controller also having a watchdog timer), right?

Geoff Hilton says:

aye

Lavina Parwani says:

hi, sorry I'm late

Lavina Parwani says:

my dad wouldn't give over the computer, hehe.

Geoff Hilton says:

hehe

Tom Nordheim says:

sorry about the multiple nudges

Lavina Parwani says:

no prob

Per-Magnus says:

no, when its about having a redundancy mcu its not like that - you would maybe have some code helping them cooperate - but the point is to have 2 identical controllers with identical firmware both being able to work alone if the other would fail

Tom Nordheim says:

we are discussing onboard data handling at the moment

Tom Nordheim says:

potentially(and this might be most sensible as well) is having the other chip in low-power mode or completely shut down

Tom Nordheim says:

ok that sentenance was not very understandable

Per-Magnus says:

in low-power mode an mcu from atmel uses power in the nano-ampere area if I dont remember wrong

Geoff Hilton says:

I understand that pveierland I'm trying to imagine how it works/what it looks like visually in my head

Tom Nordheim says:

at least micro-amperes

Tom Nordheim says:

or rather at most

Per-Magnus says:

Sorry Geoff, wasnt meant like that I'll be quiet now

Tom Nordheim says:

well 0,5 microamps

Tom Nordheim says:

not much in other words

Geoff Hilton says:

what I'm confused about though, is, how a watchdog timer on one controller (that is sleeping or entirely shut down) knows when to boot up the backup controller, should the currently running controller get abducted by aliens

Geoff Hilton says:

pveierland

Per-Magnus says:

no, the other controller would be booted by an external circuit

Per-Magnus says:

there would ideally be a separated system handling the communication flow with the up/downlink

Per-Magnus says:

so when you get a "panic"-command sent to the satellite this external circuit would switch the main controller

Geoff Hilton says:

how does the external circuit know...? it waits for a lack of signal from the formerly functional MCU?

Tom Nordheim says:

or a telecommand from the ground

Tom Nordheim says:

which would be and advantage, since we could manually reset it

Kirk Kittell says:

depends -- either onboard or from the ground, it will be a design decision later

Geoff Hilton says:

using the Command subsystem?

Geoff Hilton says:

I'd say we should implement both

Per-Magnus says:

Would prolly be both, you could actually have the external system "pinging" the mcu for a response from time to time, then switch if error

Geoff Hilton says:

one that attempts to do it automatically, and one which we can trigger, to force it's ass in gear

Per-Magnus says:

PvP is up ;> afk

Geoff Hilton says:

phone

Kirk Kittell says:

this is probably a good place to cut the CDH conversation for this meeting anyway -- that was a lot of good info

Tom Nordheim says:

ok

Tom Nordheim says:

I have looked into another payload concept that Amrut suggested to me

Kirk Kittell says:

someone please be sure to write those design ideas somewhere

Geoff Hilton says:

aye!

Kirk Kittell says:

somehow we need online lab books

Tom Nordheim says:

I can add it to the MFS, the part about redundancy

Kirk Kittell says:

good idea

Kirk Kittell says:

also, write something on the blog

Kirk Kittell says:

and whatever info is missing, Per and Geoff will fill it in with comments

Kirk Kittell says:

like a lab book, if you know what I mean -- write down all of your design thoughts

Tom Nordheim says:

ok

Tom Nordheim says:

I have looked into the possiblity of having a WSN in the cube

Kirk Kittell says:

what did you learn?

Geoff Hilton says:

(still phone)

Lavina Parwani says:

I'd like to interject something about your payload dscussion earlier

Tom Nordheim says:

although, to be honest I don't quite see the point of it...perhaps you have some thoughts on that subject...

Kirk Kittell says:

ok, let's go with Tom first, then Lavina

Lavina Parwani says:

sorry, Tom, I only saw what you wrote now

Lavina Parwani says:

go ahead

Kirk Kittell says:

the downside of text chats

Tom Nordheim says:

npin total chaos is where Norwegians are at their best

Lavina Parwani says:

haha

Lavina Parwani says:

so WSN?

Per-Magnus says:

sorry, wsn = ?

Tom Nordheim says:

anyway, this is basically and idea incorporating a network of very small wireless sensor packages

Tom Nordheim says:

wireless sensor network

Geoff Hilton says:

back

Tom Nordheim says:

each "mote"(package) cointans an mcu, comm, psu and a sensor

Tom Nordheim says:

these can potentially be VERY small(see link on mfs), however I am very unsure about the availability of these motes in the "very small" category and also about what we would use it for

Tom Nordheim says:

sensors would probably be temperature, pressure, shock...

Geoff Hilton says:

those would be local measurements surrounding the satellite..would we have use for that info?

Kirk Kittell says:

have they been used in space environment before?

Geoff Hilton says:

what about a temperature control system or something? (if that exists?)

Tom Nordheim says:

no I don't think so...

Tom Nordheim says:

well this is kind of hard to say now, but we might likely not have the possiblity of active temperature controll in such a small satellite...

Kirk Kittell says:

ok, keep it in the report, but maybe with the suggestion that someone contacts a manufacturer to see if they would donate sensors for us to try in space

Kirk Kittell says:

if we choose it for a payload

Kirk Kittell says:

it could be a secondary payload if it fits constraints and is free

Tom Nordheim says:

I'm on that already actually

Tom Nordheim says:

the contacting part

Kirk Kittell says:

wow

Tom Nordheim says:

Lav....

Lavina Parwani says:

yes, wow

Lavina Parwani says:

Geoff Hilton says:

Geoff Hilton says:

yup

Kirk Kittell says:

haha

Kirk Kittell says:

Lavina concurs: wow

Lavina Parwani says:

Alright

Geoff Hilton says:

do we need to take into consideration radiation shielding?

Geoff Hilton says:

haha

Lavina Parwani says:

We have to be careful about accepting payloads from commercial/university sources if there's a pecuniary interest involved.

Tom Nordheim says:

excuse me for me n00bish english, but pecuniary=?

Tom Nordheim says:
my
Lavina Parwani says:

monetary, sorry

Lavina Parwani says:

if money/profit or anything like that is involved in the testing of the payload, then we won't be able to use the amateur radio frequencies

Geoff Hilton says:

how come?

Geoff Hilton says:

for legal/ethical reasons?

Lavina Parwani says:

even if it's just to regain costs. If we get a payload, it has to be absolutely free with no expectations of any kind from the donor

Lavina Parwani says:

http://www.amsat.org/amsat/intro/using-ham-freqs.html

Tom Nordheim says:

what would constitute as profit here? say if a company wants to test new technology....

Lavina Parwani says:

yes

Lavina Parwani says:

testing new technology for a company, etc. I was reading the FAQ on that link yesterday

Lavina Parwani says:

Also, one of us, presumably the team that accepts the ground subsystem, has to work on getting an amateur radio operator license

Geoff Hilton says:

oh I see

Kirk Kittell says:

hmmm, I didn't know that -- ask Purvesh if there are any exceptions to that rule

Kirk Kittell says:

I thought that on ION, they tested new microthrusters that were donated

Geoff Hilton says:

heh, in High School I almost got a radio operator license

Geoff Hilton says:

I didn't finish it though

Kirk Kittell says:

but that was four years ago and I might have bad memory

Lavina Parwani says:

well, if the testing was for purely academic reasons, it might have been okay

Tom Nordheim says:

are you sure lav? what if we don't profit from the testing?

Lavina Parwani says:

but the company profits from the testing

Tom Nordheim says:

hmmm

Tom Nordheim says:

but then again

Geoff Hilton says:

oh, also, it would depend on..err, not sure

Tom Nordheim says:

lots of universities would be interested I imagine

Lavina Parwani says:

An example is this:

Lavina Parwani says:

Q8: We can't afford solar panels for our satellite. But xyz Corp. has agreed to provide panels in exchange for our project 'qualifying' them in space. We will collect telemetry on their performance along with the normal telemetry from the satellite, all of which will be published and available to all amateurs. Does using free commercial solar panels disqualify us from using the amateur band

Tom Nordheim says:

and they would be ok right?

Tom Nordheim says:
that
Lavina Parwani says:

A: It depends. The issue is compensation (pecuniary interest). As long as you meet all amateur requirements, then using freely donated hardware (or software) and sharing what you learn as an amateur is fine. Implicit understandings that you will share data shouldn’t be a problem so long as the sharing isn’t a condition of the donation, which would be a form of compensation. Free will do

Lavina Parwani says:

Free will donations have made many satellites and on-board experiments possible.

Free will donations, by definition, are always made with no expectation of anything in return. Indeed, a written record of the donation may be helpful; even necessary.

Kirk Kittell says:

hmmm, you certainly did your research

Lavina Parwani says:

so there is a loophole

Lavina Parwani says:

hehe, it's part of the communications

Geoff Hilton says:

the US (soon, if not recently) is going to/has stopped requiring a morse code license (part of getting a ham license) most other countries (including Canada and Australia among others, if I recall correctly) haven't required morse code training in a while though

Lavina Parwani says:

I was wondering about the frequencies

Kirk Kittell says:

it sounds like you need to ask amsat for each particular case

Kirk Kittell says:

(regarding free technology, that is)

Lavina Parwani says:

yeah

Lavina Parwani says:

although reading the FAQ gives us a fair idea

Tom Nordheim says:

what about the frequencies?

Lavina Parwani says:

Well, what frequencies we were going to use

Lavina Parwani says:

and how to go about it

Tom Nordheim says:

the standard is 430ish MHz if I don't remember incorrectly...

Lavina Parwani says:
about getting permission for it
Lavina Parwani says:

yeah that's standard

Lavina Parwani says:

but one of the cubesats used a Terminal Node Controller for their satellite

Kirk Kittell says:

Lavina: be sure to include that in the report for future tasks -- getting a frequency and how to do it (as well as the commercial info you posted)

Lavina Parwani says:

and I was wondering if it was necessary

Tom Nordheim says:

does it matter which modulation we use, as long as it's not encrypted/the information for demodulation is freely available

Lavina Parwani says:

I'll do that, kirk

Lavina Parwani says:

As long as its freely available, I don't think it matters

Geoff Hilton says:

speaking of encryption, we would need a minimum of security, no?

Tom Nordheim says:

ok , good

Tom Nordheim says:

we can't encrypt our data

Geoff Hilton says:

we wouldn't want just anyone logging into the satellite and rebooting it just because they can

Lavina Parwani says:

we can't encrypt it at all

Tom Nordheim says:

reminds me of ncube, eh per?

Lavina Parwani says:

Q6: In order to be sure no one can take over our satellite we plan to encrypt all transmissions both ways. It's just easier to encrypt everything. We have spent a lot of time and money on this project and don't want anyone messing it up.

A: Then, you must operate in another radio service. Remember, all amateur radio transmissions must be in the clear.

Geoff Hilton says:

maybe not, but what about when logging into the satellite/sending it commands? we can't just let anybody execute critical operations like reboots or satellite realigments or whatnots

Tom Nordheim says:

according to rumor there was only person with the password for the norwegian ncube2 satellite

Geoff Hilton says:

ah

Tom Nordheim says:

then again, the password has to be sent unencoded as well

Lavina Parwani says:

we can email amsat as to that, Geoff

Geoff Hilton says:

good idea

Tom Nordheim says:

so there would perhaps have to be some sort of codegen-circuit or sw on the satellite itself

Geoff Hilton says:

we wouldn't want a stray signal/snot nosed kid triggering a system reboot

Geoff Hilton says:

well...it could require a password (unencoded)

Geoff Hilton says:

but we'd be sending it, the satellite wouldn't reply with the password in its contence

Geoff Hilton says:

so in that sense we're safe..

Per-Magnus says:

ok, off pvp. actually you dont have to use encryption to secure login. you can combine the password with other variables (like time) when sending a command that requires login. and there's tbh few cases where you need a password?

Geoff Hilton says:

few, but important

Geoff Hilton says:

rebooting is an obvious one, beyond that would be anything that alters the satellite's physical trajectory or alignment, as well as uploading to it

Per-Magnus says:

yes, ofc its vital to have some security. but there's also other levels of security. the thing about hacking something is that you need information. so as long as some commands are kept secret from public

Geoff Hilton says:

people could download from the satellite until the cows come home, but we wouldn't want them overwriting the firmware

Geoff Hilton says:

true

Geoff Hilton says:

Tom Nordheim says:

hmm yes, that should obviously require some sort of password...

Geoff Hilton says:

hehe

Tom Nordheim says:

we could for safety's sake have a seperate password for each task

Geoff has left the conversation.

Kirk Kittell says:

this would be a good point to do some research on what is typically done to prevent these problems

Kirk was added to this conversation. Handwriting is no longer supported because not all participants can view handwritten messages. Handwritten messages will be sent as text.

Kirk Kittell says:

(plus I want to move on to one more point before I go home for the night)

Lavina Parwani says:

Go ahead, Kirk

Geoff Hilton says:

sure...I like the timestamp thing though, but then we need to take into account time difference (caused by ping time for instance)

Tom Nordheim says:

and relativity

Geoff Hilton says:

hehe

Per-Magnus says:

doesnt have to be that exact. like 5-10 seconds would be more than enough to ensure the passwords effectiveness

Kirk Kittell says:

you're a physicist, aren't you?

Geoff Hilton says:

who kirk?

Geoff Hilton says:

I'm a programmer

Tom Nordheim says:

who me? I'm doing a physics degree, but I'm an engineer at heart

Kirk Kittell says:

after I go, you guys can continute to talk about the CDH stuff -- don't let me stop you

Kirk Kittell says:

I just want to get some ideas about getting more staff and a payload

Geoff Hilton says:

Lavina Parwani says:

did you get my email, Kirk?

Kirk Kittell says:

let me get the most recent schedule I posted in the MFS...

Kirk Kittell says:

yep

Kirk Kittell says:

you are right -- we need to list the duties of each person

Kirk Kittell says:

the duties of a subsystem leader, regular team member, and program manager -- plus the duties for each subsystem

Kirk Kittell says:

let's talk about the schedule first

Kirk Kittell says:

then requirements

Lavina Parwani says:

ok

Tom Nordheim says:

who will constitute the MCR board?

Kirk Kittell says:

13 Jan: finish the MFS 14 Jan: give the MFS to review board 21 Jan: deadline for review board comments 28 Jan: deadline for our response to comments

Kirk Kittell says:

mostly people I know in the space industry

Tom Nordheim says:

Kirk Kittell says:

trying to get people in Canada, US, UK, Europe, India and places where our staff will be

Kirk Kittell says:

will probably have Lavina get a prof or someone from Philippines

Kirk Kittell says:

so that she has support throughout the project

Lavina Parwani says:

I'll try to look here

Kirk Kittell says:

ok -- you are the only person I know from the Philippines so I am of no use

Lavina Parwani says:

I can't do anything until next week though; everyone's out of town

Lavina Parwani says:

hehe

Kirk Kittell says:

that is January --

Lavina Parwani says:

8

Lavina Parwani says:

How will they collaborate to review the MFS?

Kirk Kittell says:

I want to add the review board's comments and our responses as appendices to the MFS

Lavina Parwani says:

or will they do it individually

Lavina Parwani says:

?

Kirk Kittell says:

they will read it and make suggestions

Kirk Kittell says:

individually

Lavina Parwani says:

ok

Kirk Kittell says:

this time, at least

Lavina Parwani says:

alrighty

Lavina Parwani says:

it seems to me to be the best way anyway

Kirk Kittell says:

after 28 Jan, we can start advertising

Kirk Kittell says:

then our concept will be good -- that is, people can take us more seriously

Lavina Parwani says:

yeah

Tom Nordheim says:

the period from now to the end of january is going to be busy for me(exams) but I should be able to keep up the level of involvement that I've had this far at least....

Kirk Kittell says:

no prob -- university is first priority

Kirk Kittell says:

if you add your info to the MFS, we can do the editing

Per-Magnus says:

hm, what I dont get. you are having a concept done the 28th. but what are you going to have as the actual cube task?

Kirk Kittell says:

ahhh, that is the next set of deadines

Kirk Kittell says:

25 Feb: Close applications 11 Mar: Team chosen and distributed 8 Apr: Mission Definition Review

Per-Magnus says:

ah sorry ;>

Lavina Parwani says:

ah , dates

Lavina Parwani says:

hehe

Kirk Kittell says:

the MDR will be related to the payload concept

Kirk Kittell says:

and this is where I need all of your ideas

Per-Magnus says:

and the MFS = ?

Kirk Kittell says:

MFS says that we understand what is required to design the satellite, and that we have a plan for doing it

Per-Magnus says:

kk get it

Kirk Kittell says:

if we were just at one university, we could perhaps do this in one week

Lavina Parwani says:

I wouldn't go that far, but yeah, you have a point

Kirk Kittell says:

but with so much separation, this project seems impossible -- but we are going to convince others that this is not true

Kirk Kittell says:

and that they should join us

Kirk Kittell says:

(and give us money)

Lavina Parwani says:

haha

Tom Nordheim says:

we will assimiliate you into our cubesat project

Lavina Parwani says:

hahahaha

Lavina Parwani says:

well said, Tom

Kirk Kittell says:

haha --- ok the last set of dates -- 25 Feb: Close applications 11 Mar: Team chosen and distributed 8 Apr: Mission Definition Review

Kirk Kittell says:

should we have a payload application with the staff application?

Lavina Parwani says:

you mean, they suggest a payload?

Kirk Kittell says:

yeah, and then the team chooses the best -- just an idea, start from there

Tom Nordheim says:

ok

Lavina Parwani says:

Yeah, that sounds good... it'll be the closest we can get to that payload conference you were talking about

Kirk Kittell says:

well... there were flaws in the conference idea -- most importantly, the team wouldn't pick the payload

Tom Nordheim says:

btw before I forget, I know someone I can email about the security thing,...

Kirk Kittell says:

hmmm.... so maybe you like the idea of applications?

Tom Nordheim says:

Lavina Parwani says:

yeah

Lavina Parwani says:

it'll give us a wide range of ideas

Geoff Hilton says:

eh Tom?

Tom Nordheim says:

?

Geoff Hilton says:

Kirk: yeah!

Kirk Kittell says:

ok, the schedule one more time... 25 Feb: Close applications 11 Mar: Team chosen and distributed 8 Apr: Mission Definition Review

Geoff Hilton says:

Tom: about the security, your e-mailing someone

Kirk Kittell says:

I don't know who should choose the team...

Kirk Kittell says:

perhaps the advisers?

Lavina Parwani says:

the advisers

Kirk Kittell says:

I don't think anyone that applies will be turned away

Geoff Hilton says:

sure

Lavina Parwani says:

based on the experience/knowledge of the applicants

Lavina Parwani says:

which means we need to get advisers first?

Kirk Kittell says:

but picking leaders is important, and distributing people on each subsystem

Geoff Hilton says:

yeah

Kirk Kittell says:

you already have four

Kirk Kittell says:

but we can get some others, certainly

Lavina Parwani says:

Oh, I meant the local advisors for the subsystem?

Kirk Kittell says:

I'm going to send an email to the seds-alumni list to find volunteers -- there are lots of engineers and past sedsat-1 people there

Kirk Kittell says:

ahhh, I see what you mean Lavina

Geoff Hilton says:

nice

Tom Nordheim says:

I suggest the alumni together with Kirk, since you actually have some some impression of us working in the group at the moment

Kirk Kittell says:

about Lavina's advisers -- I was thinking of having that as part of the application process

Kirk Kittell says:

applicants have to include the name/contact of a personal adviser

Kirk Kittell says:

maybe not everyone will have one, but for subsystem leaders, it should be important

Lavina Parwani says:

yeah

Lavina Parwani says:

that way they can work in tandem with the "actual" advisors, the seds alum, to give a more successful project

Tom Nordheim says:

I agree with that, and it will add to our credibility

Lavina Parwani says:

yep

Kirk Kittell says:

the schedule, one last time: 25 Feb: Close applications 11 Mar: Team chosen and distributed 8 Apr: Mission Definition Review

Lavina Parwani says:

ok

Kirk Kittell says:

the new team will have one month to discuss the payload concepts, and will choose one for the MDR

Lavina Parwani says:

(I have to go soon, here I have another meeting)

Lavina Parwani says:

Yep

Lavina Parwani says:

i think a month for discussion is good

Kirk Kittell says:

by the way, you can suggest new dates -- these are just initial ideas, not carved in stone

Lavina Parwani says:

I'll think on the dates and send a message to the email list if I think of any changes

Kirk Kittell says:

ok

Kirk Kittell says:

I'll start a draft of the application at: http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/SEDSAT-2_Design_Team_Application

Lavina Parwani says:

on a side note, the SEDSat2 blog got 186 hits

Kirk Kittell says:

and http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/SEDSAT-2_Payload_Application

Lavina Parwani says:

ok

Lavina Parwani says:

we can also use Google Document, if we want a larger range of features

Kirk Kittell says:

maybe for spreadsheets -- for text, let's stay with the wiki for now

Kirk Kittell says:

but yeah -- I'm an addict on Google documents...

Lavina Parwani says:

ok

Kirk Kittell says:

so it will not take very much to convince me...

Tom Nordheim says:

let's not sell our souls to google just yet

Tom Nordheim says:

although I think most of us already have

Lavina Parwani says:

I have

Kirk Kittell says:

same here

Lavina Parwani says:

it's just so darned awesome

Geoff Hilton says:

hehehe

Kirk Kittell says:

is there a volunteer to post meeting notes/transcript today?

Lavina Parwani says:

I can do it, but I'll have to do it a bit later?

Kirk Kittell says:

sure, no hurry

Lavina Parwani says:

I have to run to another meeting. I've been a little lax I know, but I'll get better, I promise

Kirk Kittell says:

and you all have something to write briefly on the blog...

Kirk Kittell says:

Lavina's amsat info

Kirk Kittell says:

Geoff and his password protection

Kirk Kittell says:

Per and his redundancy (but first you have to sign up)

Kirk Kittell says:

Tom and his payloads

Per-Magnus says:

d'oh, I got this thing from a guy I met at estec. he had a class on student satellite engineering on video at the esa/erasmus but I cant find it now. will check with some other ppl for it tomorrow

Tom Nordheim says:

what kind of thing?

Per-Magnus says:

oh, I'm not sure if I'm part of the project just wanted to view your meeting

Tom Nordheim says:

join us, resistance is futile

Per-Magnus says:

it was a lecture on alot issues around building stuff for space, things you have to think about - basic student stuff, but at this lvl

Kirk Kittell says:

it was good

Kirk Kittell says:

personally I'm a rocket guy, so I was learning about satellites

Geoff Hilton says:

We are the SEDS. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Geoff Hilton says:

hehehehe

Lavina Parwani says:

hehe

Kirk Kittell says:

you don't have to join (there are no criteria for membership yet...), but you can talk and help us

Tom Nordheim says:

you should subscribe to the sedsat mailing list Per

Kirk Kittell says:

http://www.seds.org/mailman/listinfo/sedsat2

Kirk Kittell says:

(i think)

Per-Magnus says:

ok, ty

Kirk Kittell says:

you can listen, talk... whatever you prefer

Kirk Kittell says:

technically, I am not a member of the team, but an old guy in the background

Kirk Kittell says:

"old" by the way

Per-Magnus says:

how old? ^^

Kirk Kittell says:

26 now

Per-Magnus says:

cool

Lavina Parwani says:

thats not old

Lavina Parwani says:

Im 22

Tom Nordheim says:

20

Geoff Hilton says:

ditto, 24

Lavina Parwani says:

see?

Lavina Parwani says:

we're all young and dashing

Lavina Parwani says:

anywho

Kirk Kittell says:

oh no, I wasn't feeling bad

Lavina Parwani says:

I have to go

Kirk Kittell says:

yep, talk to you again soon

Lavina Parwani says:

is there anything else before I do?

Geoff Hilton says:

lol Lavina

Retrieved from "http://wiki.seds.org/index.php/SEDSAT-2_Meeting_Transcript_20070104"

Category: SEDSAT-2 Meetings

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