astronomy

KickSat

KickSat is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand KickSat rather than just read about it. In short: KickSat was a satellite dispenser for small-satellite (femtosatellite) project inaugurated in early October 2011, to launch many very small satellites from a 3U CubeSat. The satellites have been characterized as being the size of a large postage stamp. and also as "cracker size".

Key takeaways

KickSat belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect KickSat to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of KickSat from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

KickSat was a satellite dispenser for small-satellite (femtosatellite) project inaugurated in early October 2011, to launch many very small satellites from a 3U CubeSat. The satellites have been characterized as being the size of a large postage stamp. and also as "cracker size". The mission launch was originally scheduled for late 2013 and was launched April 18, 2014. Kicksat reached its orbit and transmitted beacon signals that were received by radio amateurs. Telemetry data allowed the prediction of the orbit and the reentry on May 15, 2014, at about 01:30 UTC. Due to a non-redundant design, a timer reset while on-orbit and the femtosatellites were not deployed in time, and burned up inside the KickSat mothership when the undeployed satellite-deployment mechanism reentered Earth's atmosphere. It is one of several crowdfunded satellites launched during the 2010s.

History The project was crowdfunded through Kickstarter. The project was advertised with the goal of reducing the cost of spaceflight so that it could be affordable on an individual basis.

Design In its minimal configuration, each Sprite femtosatellite will be designed to send a very short message (a few bytes long) to a network of ground stations. The chipset of use is a TI CC430F5137 (MCU + RF) with codebase from panStamp. Firmware developer kits were sent to donors who contributed enough to qualify for customizing their own Sprite. Sprites can be organized into fleets; one of them was to be named for the British Interplanetary Society. London Hackspace had begun work on its own ground station.

Inaugural mission KickSat launched on an ISS commercial resupply mission, SpaceX CRS-3, originally scheduled for late 2013, but ultimately delayed until April 18, 2014. On April 30, 2014, the microcontroller managing the master clock was found to have reset due to a technical problem, an effect of space radiation. This reset added two weeks to the deployment schedule for the sprites, and started a race against time to charge KickSat's battery enough to power deployment of the sprites before KickSat began atmospheric reentry. On May 14, 2014, KickSat reentered the atmosphere and burned up; all sprites were lost.

Other missions Sprites were launched on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour during STS-134 in May 2011, and spent three years mounted to the outside of the ISS as part of the eighth Materials International Space Station Experiment. Upon their return to Earth, they were still functional. This verified the design could survive the space environment for far longer than the planned nominal mission length. In 2016, the KickSat Sprite was discussed as an early-stage prototype of the interstellar probe proposed for Breakthrough Starshot. On June 23, 2017, the PSLV-C38 launch carried 31 satellites into low Earth orbit. Among them were Max Valier, built by OHB of (Germany) and Venta-1 which were carrying six sprite spacecraft as secondary payloads. After being shortlisted in February 2015 by NASA under its CubeSat Launch Initiative, KickSat-2 was launched aboard Cygnus NG-10 SS John Glenn on November 17, 2018. After detaching from the ISS, the free-flying Cygnus spacecraft deployed KickSat-2 at an altitude of 300 km on February 13, 2019. KickSat-2 established communication with ground controllers soon after, reporting good health despite a weaker than expected signal. On March 18, 2019, KickSat-2 deployed 105 Sprites which successfully transmitted data before reentering the atmosphere.

References

Further reading Peter Murray (August 15, 2011). "Computer Chip-Sized Spacecraft Will Explore Space in Swarms". Singularity Hub. Archived from the original on October 26, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Jim Waymer (May 13, 2011). "Cornell mini-satellites to ride on shuttle". The Ithaca Journal. Ithaca, N.Y. p. A1. Archived from the original on October 11, 2011. Charles Q. Choi (April 29, 2011). "Cracker-size satellites to launch with Space Shuttle Endeavour". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Paul Gilster (April 28, 2011). "Tiny Spacecraft Point to Future Sails". Tau Zero Foundation. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Mason Peck (August 2011). "Exploring Space with Chip-sized Satellites". IEEE Spectrum. IEEE. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Jennifer Ouellette (May 16, 2011). "'Satellite on a Chip' to Launch with Space Shuttle". Discovery News: Space News. Discovery Communications. Archived from the original on October 14, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Clay Dillow (April 28, 2011). "Cornell's Thumbnail-Sized Satellites Are Headed to Space, Could Soon be Bound for Saturn". popsci.com. Popular Science. Retrieved October 16, 2011. Elizabeth Simpson (April 27, 2011). "Chip satellites – designed to blow in the solar wind – depart on Endeavour's final launch". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved December 6, 2012. Caleb Garling (December 24, 2012). "Personal satellites that fly into space". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 28, 2012.

External links

"Space Systems Design Studio". Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Cornell University College of Engineering. Retrieved October 16, 2011. "Kicksat – The First Personal Satellite – Interview with inventor Zac Manchester" (video). buzzumi. January 10, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2012. Maria Minsker (January 25, 2012). "Grad Student Launches Personal Satellites". The Cornell Daily Sun. Ithaca, NY. Retrieved January 25, 2012. Zac Manchester; Michael Romanko; Rob Schwartz. "KickSat @ GitHub". GitHub. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2012. Anne Ju (December 5, 2012). "Crowd-funded, DIY spacecraft to float into low-Earth orbit". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved December 6, 2012. Anne Ju (December 5, 2012). "Cornell's KickSat to launch sprites into space". Ithaca Independent. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 6, 2012. Kelvin Long (January 2, 2013). "Project KickSat Update". British Interplanetary Society. Archived from the original on March 27, 2013. Retrieved January 6, 2012. Zac Manchester (December 12, 2011). "The Sprite Project: Satellite on a Chip". Engineering Colloquium. Greenbelt, Maryland: Goddard Spaceflight Center. Retrieved July 27, 2013.; presentation here: [1]

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with KickSat

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what KickSat claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to KickSat before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about KickSat ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of KickSat

In research: KickSat appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses KickSat in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: KickSat is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics CubeSats, Kickstarter-funded spacecraft, Secondary payloads, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for KickSat outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study KickSat in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what KickSat means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain KickSat out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is KickSat in simple terms?

Why does KickSat matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study KickSat?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on KickSat.