Pricing for rad-hard parts

That is certainly an option but I'll leave that to the client. A lot of liability can ride on self-testing.

A follow-up question: Does anyone know a distributor that carries a great variety of rad-hard parts?

What I saw was just a tiny selection and they all make you fill out lengthy registrations before an RFQ would even go through. Some lead times I saw can raise neck hair. 30 weeks seems to be nothing. OTOH that allows a lot of time off for bike rides and beer brewing.

There are international _recommendations_ that the debris should decay within 25 years after the end of operation.

The problem is that the usable altitude range is quite limited. On one hand, the orbit must be high enough so that the intended mission (1 month to 5 years) can be performed before decaying, which translates to 400-500 km. On the other hand, above 700-800 km, the decay time is more than 25 years.

It is just a recommendation.

Trackable by whom ?

Which company and by whom ?

India has launched several satellites to sun synchronous polar orbits. There are only a few such usable orbits, most of them are above 800 km.

The primary (paying) customer determines the orbit for the primary payload and the secondary payloads have to accept what they got. Due to the risk of explosions, secondary payloads are typically not allowed to carry fuel or rocket motors. Thus, these satellites will end up in the same orbit as the last stage of the booster rocket.

For the sane reason, rocket motors are not available for de orbiting the satellite at end of mission. The other question is, how reliable would the deorbit system be after several years in space.

Anyway, there are experimental system flying now for de orbiting, such as electrostatic plasma brake tethers, but within a year or two we will see if it is reliable.

spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/fcc-accuses-stealthy-startup-of-launching-rogue-satellites

John

Not for US companies, it's certainly not.

NORAD

Do you know how to do a web search?

Depending on the payload, of course.

Depending on the payload, of course.

Right out of '70s television.

The recommendation is for max 25 years, but it doesn't limit the size.

The company should move their business to a more technology friendly country.

Outside US, who, cares a damn what NORAD thinks.

After all, this dispute seems to be blatant "protectionism", i.e. some big boys do not want competition and puts FCC to do the dirty work.

Compared to NORAD claimed capabilities, these small satellites shouldn't be a problem. After all a tumbling 1/4U satellite should give similar reflections as 1/2U satellites, which are OK.

Some additional information.

All four SpaceBEEs have received NORAD IDs so NORAD has successfully tracked them. They are on 500 km nearly circular 97 degree polar orbits, so they should decay well before 25 years.

The Stanford SNAPS launched for more than two years ago with a US launcher was also a 0.25U CubeSat and it did not seem to cause tracking problems.

You're wrong, of course.

Good Lord, learn to read!

So you can read. It just gets lost in the space between your ears. Of course, you're wrong again.

...and again.

Lost in (inner) space, again.

You would need the client to sign off on the type of testing as being representative. In my case it was a few nA of particle beam at a huge facility on the West coast. Fun stuff. Met guys from Intel and IBM doing their testing.

--sp

That I will leave to the client. If anything needs to be tested they have to find out what, to which specs and then arrange it themselves. All I need to know is to which spec to design.

Do you or another engineer in this NG know a distributor for space-rated passives such as diodes, zeners capacitors and resistors? I know the "usual suspects" for transistors and ICs but didn't have to deal with space-rated passives in a very long time. Best would be if there'd be a "Lunar Digikey" but that's only a dream.