...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

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Copernical Team

Copernical Team

Wednesday, 28 August 2013 23:00

Mars Foundation

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Mars Foundation is an American organisation with the mission to design, fund, build and operate the first permanent settlement on Mars (project called 'Mars Homestead Project').

The initial goal for the Mars Homestead Project is to identify the core technologies needed for an economical, growing Mars Base built primarily with local materials. Efforts will then be focused on prototype projects of increasing sophistication. These could include the selection of existing equipment which could be used on Mars, or the construction of prototypes of new equipment. These steps will lead the Mars Foundation to the establishment of an entire simulated Mars settlement at a location here on Earth, which will serve as a research and outreach center.

The initial programming feasibility study has been conducted by a small Program Team, whose members have professional or academic experience in applicable engineering areas. Areas of expertise include: Materials, Structures, Mechanical Systems, Architecture, Agriculture, Nutrition, Process/PSSS, Electrical Systems, I&C, Data/Telecom, EHS, IE, Mars Geology/Topography, Space Transportation, Spacesuits, Systems Integration, and many others.

The Mars Foundation has also established a small board of technical advisors who provide expertise in specific areas, and created a general "brainstorming" discussion group which is open to the interested public, regardless of their technical experience.

Tuesday, 27 August 2013 23:00

TriSept Corporation

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The company TriSept Corporation is a seasoned technical service provider to the space and intelligence communities.

It is a small business comprised of hand-selected industry and technology veterans that possess an average of over 27 years of broad-based experience necessary to successfully plan and execute the full space lifecycle and provide information assurance expertise to protect our Nation's sensitive information. 

TriSept takes advantage of the mass and fairing volume margin to add smaller spacecraft allowing more efficient access to space for all while reducing individual launch costs without an increase in risk to the mission.

Areas of Expertise

  • Systems Engineering
  • Program Management Support
  • Satellite to Booster Integration
  • Specialized Engineering Consultation
  • Small Satellite Integration
  • Spacecraft Development
  • Mission Planning and Support
  • Mission Operations

 

Wednesday, 21 August 2013 11:30

Warp Drive

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Warp drive is a hypothetical faster-than-light propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek.

However, how crazy the idea could be, a few months ago, in 2013, physicist Harold White, working at the NASA Johnson Space Center, stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive. His proposed design, a re-imagining of an Alcubierre Drive, may ... eventually result in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks — and all without violating Einstein's law of relativity.

Some clarifications in this SpaceRef article: here

Harold White published in 2011 an article titled 'Warp Field Mechanics 101' available on the NASA site: here.

Tuesday, 20 August 2013 23:00

Dual-Stage 4-Grid (DS4G) thruster

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The Dual-Stage 4-Grid (DS4G) is an electrostatic ion thruster design developed by the European Space Agency, in collaboration with the Australian National University.

The design was derived from Controlled Thermonuclear Reactor experiments that use a 4-grid mechanism to accelerate ion beams.

Wednesday, 21 August 2013 06:07

Bolshoi Simulation

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The Bolshoi simulation is the most accurate cosmological simulation of the evolution of the large-scale structure of the universe yet made.

The starting point for Bolshoi was the best ground- and space-based observations, including NASA's long-running and highly successful WMAP Explorer mission that has been mapping the light of the Big Bang in the entire sky. One of the world's fastest supercomputers then calculated the evolution of a typical region of the universe a billion light years across. The Bolshoi simulation took 6 million cpu hours to run on the Pleiades supercomputer—recently ranked as seventh fastest of the world's top 500 supercomputers—at NASA Ames Research Center.

Monday, 19 August 2013 09:31

Attitude Determination & Control units

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SpaceQuest's ADC (Attitude Determination & Control)  units help you keep your spacecraft in a healthy orientation.

Attitude sensors augment your situational awareness and might be essential to your mission. Our Attitude control devices, both passive and active, give you the flexibility to control your spacecraft without the high cost of other systems. All of our ADC units are small and friendly to your power budget.

Item Description

  • GPS-12-V1 Space-Qualified GPS Receiver
  • MAG-3 Three-Axis Magnetometer
  • MW-1000 Reaction / Momentum Wheel (1 Nms)

 

Monday, 19 August 2013 09:21

Instarocket App

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Instarocket is a touch based program to perform early conceptual sizing on a 2 stage liquid launch vehicle.

Similar mathematics are found in ZPFCs (Zero Point Frontiers Corp) Level 0 Launch Vehicle design Process.
Instarocket is ideal for college or professional engineers needing a rough sizing solution for a 2 stage LV.
Typical results are achieved in less than 5 minutes.

App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instarocket/id455325630

Monday, 19 August 2013 09:09

Semiconductors for Space products

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Semiconductors for Class V Space Flight / Satellite Products.

To support the demanding nature of space applications the TI and National product lines are combined to create a strong product portfolio. Customers will not experience any disruption of service and all TI and National products will continue to be available. By combining these portfolios TI provides a complete signal chain solution for space systems.

Customers can be assured of:

  • Extended Product Life Cycle
  • No Part Number Changes
  • No Requalification
  • Continued National Wafer Fab Operation
  • Continued new product development

Texas Instruments supports space applications with MIL-PRF-38535 QML Class V components. 

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The Coupled Ion-Neutral Dynamics Investigations (CINDI), a mission to understand the dynamics of the Earth's ionosphere. The interaction between electrically neutral and electrically charged gases in the upper atmosphere has a major influence on the structure of the ionosphere.

CINDI is part of the payload for the Communication and Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite. C/NOFS, a United States Air Force (USAF) project, aims to predict the behavior of equatorial ionospheric irregularities which can cause major problems for communications and navigation systems.

Friday, 16 August 2013 11:23

GPS III

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GPS Block IIIA, or GPS III is the next generation of GPS satellites which will be used to keep the Navstar Global Positioning System operational. It is the U.S. Air Force's next generation Global Positioning System.

Lockheed Martin is the contractor for the design, development and production of the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) and the first eight GPS III satellites.

The United States Air Force plans to purchase up to 32 GPS III satellites. GPS IIIA-1, the first satellite in the series, is projected to launch in 2014.

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