D.I.Y. Satellite

by Song Hojun

D.I.Y. SATELLITE

Walking with Satelites, 2009 Cal Poly, San Louis Obispo, CA., U.S.

“Mom, can you buy me
a satellite as Christmas gift?”

“Yes, darling.”

After 3 years’ research and one year’s satellite engineer experience, I found possibility of launching and operating personal satellite with fairly reasonable price. And having been lived as artist for 5 years, I could also find ways to integrate the satellite project into cultural context-open source and art.

I & Universe
So far, almost all space programs were led by government or military. And very little were initiated by amateurs. Individual fantasies were used and fostered by institutions. It’s time to have a private connection between I and universe. By doing this, we can think about our existence more often, I believe.

Unpractical Technology
When space program is personally used, it might not be as useful as institutional ones. But that does not mean private space program is less important than institutional one. Realizing fantasy and dreaming of another fantasy is as valuable as practical and scientific missions and probably even more to some people.

Collaborative Fantasy
I haven’t seen fantasies being realized these days. Probably this is because the era we live in. To realize the project, helps from artists and passionate amateurs are needed. We’ve seen examples of collaborative intelligences and it’s time to build fantasies together. Soon we can buy 200$ satellite at a store and will wait it to be launched.

Very Kind Open Source ™
What is going to happen when secret technologies are open sourced? Are we going to see boomerang effect like Titanic incident that led governmental radio frequency domination? By providing very kind instructions to build a satellite, I want to bring up a series of questions.

Open Source Satellite Initiative | http://opensat.cc Song hojun 2009

Open Source Satellite Initiative Logo designed by lee jangsub, 2009

Technology
As
Texture!

D.I.Y.

Launch

Operate

light weight, high vibration resistance, hard anodized aluminum rails for electrical insulation

Ready-made Chassises are expensive, so we build inhouse.

Cubesat Kit from Pumpkin Co.

Unlike normal solar cells you see every day, we need a highly efficient solar cell to build a panel. And to fix the cell onto the panel, we need space-grade silicon adhesive. The problem is that most of these parts are export licensed - i.e. hard to import. But we have good alternative, as follows:

TASC Solar Cell by Spectrolab

Conventionally, due to the harshness of the space

environment, commercial batteries were regarded as inappropriate but a series of recent satellite programs have used commercial Li-Ion batteries in their satellites and proved that they worked fine.

LI-1S1P-2200 by Rosebatteries.com

Everyday objects to build antenna.

Wrap your satellite with measuring tape and tie fishing wire to the end of the satellite. When high voltage is applied to each end of the nichrome wire, it becomes hot and will cut the fishing wire to deploy the antenna.

Many artists and hobbyists use Arduino to realize their projects. Using an Arduino board as the main controller for the satellite will give OSSI the chance to cooperate with many creative individuals.

However, to use a bare Arduino board in a space environment might be hard. To mitigate radiation effects, a watchdog timer and current sensors are added. Also the microcontroller is upgraded from commercial to automotive grade to cope with severe temperature changes in space.

MAX706 Watchdog Timer

MAX4836 Current Sensor

Arduino Duemilanove by arduino.cc

Rocket rent takes up the largest portion of the budget when it comes to launching a small personal satellite. But we can reduce the rent by piggyback-riding on a primary mission satellite.

In order for an electronic device to be used in a space environment, it needs to tolerate radiations and should have good temperature ratings. What is going to happen when stories can be stored in reliable electronic devices? I’d say “The Strongest Weapon in the World” is an electronic device that stores beauties of the world even under nuclear radiation, which then can also reproduce the beauties in digital format.

3 satellites inside a womb-like adaptor

costs brought down by group buying

Used frequency earth->satellite: 145MHz satellite->earth: 435MHz As you can see, the frequency is in the FM radio band. So you can modify your old FM radio to receive data from satellites.

The most important thing in a satellite program is frequency allocation for your satellite. The IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) does this. Any amateur radio operator can request frequency coordination but to get it, we also need to consider politics within the space community. So a strategy is needed to launch a satellite as an individual and a person from the far east.

To construct a portable ground station, you need to have an iPod, a portable radio, and D.I.Y.-ed Yagi antenna. By programming your iPod you can receive data from your satellite through the Internet. You can also track your satellite.

With no GPS and no propulsion system onboard, you need help from people to locate your satellite.

Funding

Usage

Thought

Mission
Developing satellite with open source resources
Building satellite with COTS components
Operate satellite in conjunction with artists

Funding satellite program with cultural events
Demonstrating private satellite program is possible
Technical Specification
Dimension
1U Cubesat (100mm x 100mm x 100mm, <1.33kg)
Telemetry
J Mode, AX.25
Bus
OBC: ATmega168 Automotive MCU with Arduino IDE environment
EPS: Li-Ion battery with MPPT charge controller / TASC solar cell
COMMS: J-Mode UHF / VHF Transceiver

Payload
Particle detecter (GM tube or CEM) with random number generator
Radio background emission detector with random number generator
Schedule
Flight Module
09’ Q4: Frequency Coordination
09’ Q4: Building
10’ Q1: Testing
10’ Q3: Launching
11’ Q1: 200$ satellite Mass Production

Events
09’ Q3: Site, Soft goods, Forum, Workshop, Book publishing
09’ Q4: 60th IAC exhibition, Art Museum exhibition
10’ Q1: TBD
10’ Q2: TBD
10’ Q3: Music Festival

"A life is beautiful combination of Randomness"

Satellite	God
D.I.Y	Man-Made
Launch	Resurrection
Communication	Pray
Reply	N/A
Miracle	N/A
Kill Switch	Die

Satellite VS. GOD

The satellite senses Cosmic Microwave Background emission, which is proof of the big bang, to seed a random number generator and transmit the number to earth. We use these numbers for an actual lottery and we can also use them to generate particle-like computer graphics.

lottoNumber = srand(bigBang);
commPacket = rand(lottoNumber);

Space Romance 2.0

Controllable shooting star on earth. Choose a location where you would like to make a wish and push the button. Blinking pattern is morse code. You can also reserve messages for the other side of the world.

Wish when you want to!

Funding Rule

Funding through small donations
Funding through cultural events
Funding through selling art products

If you buy OSSI products,
you can apply for
“satellite lotto.”

Artist
Numi(Spain) / Ohyun(Germany) / Jangsub(Korea) / DIZI (Korea) /
Jay(Korea) / Hyup(Korea) / Powderly(Graffiti Research Lab) / hhjjj(OSSI)

OSSI Effectors

INPUT = EARTH
OUTPUT = UNIVERSE

Origami

fold your global orbiting device

FIORUM

Open secret technology
&
Boomerang effects

When Art become practical,
we call it technology.

When Technology become useless,
we call it Art.

FAQ

-Why do you launch satellite?
-Is is legal to launch a satellite as an individual?
-Is OSSI-1 criticizing religions?
-Is OSSI an art project or a technology project?
-OSSI-1’s purpose is not scientific or practical at all.
How do you think OSSI-1 can benefit the world?
-What is ROI (Return On Investment) in OSSI?
-Don’t you think you’d better spend the budget to help poor
people rather than launching a satellite?
-What do you think is going to happen when once secret
technologies are all available online?
-What is Very Kind Open Source ™?
-What is the chance of OSSI project being abused by
terrorists?
-Who are you?

2009 Cubesat Developers’ Workshop Poster
Designed by Kwon Ohyun
The letters “GOD” are used to show the D.I.Y.
process of launching a satellite as well as
related art and culture activities.

Space-grade Gucci Flora, 2009

MLI Film+HeatResistant Tape Send “Eau de toilette “ to space!

“Satellite For dummies”, parody, 2009

Art & Tech. Moebius Strip, 2009

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