Odpowiedzi - Adamie, miałeś rację! ArduSat chce nawet 10 osób naraz dać do eksperymentów na pokładzie. Każdy z satelitów ma być na orbicie zaledwie kilka miesięcy, zatem mamy już ramy czasowe, kiedy mniej więcej chcielibyśmy dokonać naszych eksperymentów.
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1) ArduSat can host up to 10 experiments running simultaneously; obviously, if there are 10 people using the satellite at the same time, not all of them will be able to steer the satellite, so we are working on a scheduling procedure to arrange people.
1b) Our decay estimates put the orbital lifetime of the satellite around 3 months per satellite.
2) The satellite does not use AX.25, instead we use CCSDS protocol over MSK modulated FM radio. There is a lot of controversy in the FCC/ITU right now about CubeSats using radio frequencies, so I don't think it would be advisable from a legal / regulatory perspective for us to add anything to the beacon. Since Kickstarter backers made financial contributions that funded the satellite, some people could interpret that as a customer relationship, so if we broadcast a message for you, we would need a special broadcasting license, which is very expensive and takes a long time to get for satellites.
For 3) and 4): The software team is working on a more comprehensive data budget right now, I have forwarded your email to them so we can work out a more firm number. The 300kb is only an order-of-magnitude estimate, but I want to get a more reliable number before I promise anything - I don't want you guys to design an experiment and suddenly have your data budget reduced! I also want to make sure we give everyone the most data we can provide, while making sure everyone gets what they paid for.
5) That is correct - once we've given the satellite to the launch provider, there is a physical kill switch that keeps it off until it is released from the ISS. After the release, there is a timer onboard that prevents the satellite from communicating until at least half an hour has passed.
6) I've forwarded your email to the sensor guy to make sure we get the accurate sensor list.
I'll follow up soon with proper answers for 3, 4 and 6!
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