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Nano & Pico-satellites, leading to Femto-satellites.

Few modern Nano and Pico-Satellites [classification] weighing less than 10kg have been launched, although there is increasing  interest in this area as advanced Microsat technology is applied to miniaturise satellite systems even further. Some microsats that have been launched in the early 1990's almost fall into this category with weights of 11-14kg, most notably the AMSAT microsat-series (see inset picture). These satellites are cubical in shape and measure less than 150mm on each side. A plot below showing satellite launched in the last decade under 20kg shows that the number nano- and picosats launched has recently been increasing. Those launched in 2000 could well be classed as the first "modern" nanosatellites. 2002 will see the first launch of swarms of "Cubesats" measuring in on the 1kg nanosat/picosat class boundary, and it looks like due to their cost-effectiveness the picosat and nanosat class spacecraft will be employed within the space research, technology demonstration and education sectors.

Nanosatellites are attractive to many educational institutions to get involved in space, as commonly available technology now makes this type of satellite feasible and most importantly affordable. If you think about it, the electronics in a mobile phone or PDA include most of the electronics  you would need for a passively stabilised satellite. If you now couple this with the fact that you can launch such a spacecraft for less than US$50k you can appreciate you can afford to take risks to learn how to use such Commercial Off-The Shelf (COTS) technology in the space environment. Picosatellites weighing less than 1kg are still some time off for commercial applications, but will become commonplace in niche sectors before 2005. 

For Nanosatellites, autonomous operation using a single on-board computer is feasible, making use of technology developed for laptop and palmtop computers. To minimise mass, active attitude and orbit control are often ignored, and omni-directional antennas are employed. The main limits are set by the downlink and power generation systems. The downlink data rate is limited by the orbit average power generation, and has to be operated at low data rates, or in burst mode.

Increasingly, micro and nanotechnology makes it possible to fabricate entire satellite sub-systems, and possibly entire satellites on a chip!  Considerable effort is being spent on these Femtosatellites weighing less than 0.1kg, with applications in remote inspection, distributed measurement and disposable sensors.

[Planned missions]