11 replies to this topic

[abe]

A while back, I read the sensational book "When the Heavens Went on Sale" by Ashley Vance.  It presented a very nice description of cubesats which look a lot like 90-100mm Maksutovs with transmitters and wings (solar panels).   In fact, they looked a lot like flying Questars.   However, I wasn't able to find a really decent photo or description of the optical system to verify the source.   Yesterday, HBO launched a documentary called "Wild Wild Space" based upon the book which included the image below, proving that at least the initial versions were, in fact, flying Questars.

A question for the cloudynights community:
If the exploding market for CubeSats is built around these small telescopes, why wouldn't a CubeSat maker like Planet Labs want to scoop up a troubled optical system maker like Meade to have full control over their optical system manufacturing and bring the cost down ever further?  

 

Is this even on Planet Labs' radar?
​https://www.planet.com 

 

 

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[TOMDEY]

That image looks like some early developmental prototypical ~proof of concept~ thingy. The fully-optimized version would most often comprise outsourced contracted quantity custom builds. Their business case undoubtedly disfavors trying to build the telescopes from scratch themselves or through acquisition of companies that are into that specialty. It would be like a home builder buying a lumber mill "to save money" on studs and plywood. It rarely works out that way. Each business does what they are best at and lets others (suppliers, etc.) provide the materials, goods, and services that they are best at.

 

I've seen that dynamic in action back when I worked at Bausch & Lomb many decades ago, and they were still a premium full-service optics manufacturer. e.g. For many years, we provided General Electric many millions of 18-layer dielectric optical coatings annually for something like 35ȼ each. They shipped us the substrates and we coated them and returned them for integration and assembly. Contract time came up and they did not renew. For a couple of years they desperately tried to do the coatings themselves... discovering that they simply couldn't replicate our quality, reliability, or cost. They returned and we continued providing what they needed. This sort of thing is common --- the job always looks easier from the other side of the fence.

 

My wife grows vegetables for the fun of it, not to save money.    Tom

[abe]

The prototype has the Questar label but the production satellites still appear to use the same optical system.  For example, below is a Dove2 series satellite - still looks like a Questar / Cumberland Optics.  

Planet labs operates about 200 of these.  In addition, they have several later series with higher resolution / larger optical systems, so they are not restricted to the 90mm optical systems and having a supplier for a more diverse set of optical systems that they could fully control would seem to have some value.  Usually this type of hardware is not strictly off the shelf.  Vertical integration often allows processes to be performed more rapidly, which also has value for this type of company.

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Edited by abe, 18 July 2024 - 03:02 AM.

[luxo II]

why wouldn't a CubeSat maker like Planet Labs want to scoop up a troubled optical system maker like Meade 

Their core business is making satellites and systems integration -  not getting involved with optics which frankly would be chicken-poo for them.

 

In any business where the cost of a component (the optics) is trivial compared to the consequences of a poor quality product, obsolescence or contractual default (supplier bankrupt) you do not choose a cheap-skate risky supplier like Meade - you go for a company with a long pedigree of delivering quality products, and a very clear financial record demonstrating they will be around for the long-haul. Hence Cumberland/Questar.

 

The only scenario where they would consider making their own solution is only where it is not feasible to find a suitable specialist contractor to make whatever widget at the required quality/price/volume with a cast-iron guarantee they will still be in the business in X years time, or where there is a long-term strategic reason to bring the product in-house.

 

Same applies in industries such as commercial aircraft, and railways. 

Edited by luxo II, 18 July 2024 - 04:41 AM.

[abe]

In any business where the cost of a component (the optics) is trivial compared to the consequences of a poor quality product, obsolescence or contractual default (supplier bankrupt) you do not choose a cheap-skate risky supplier like Meade - you go for a company with a long pedigree of delivering quality products, and a very clear financial record demonstrating they will be around for the long-haul. Hence Cumberland/Questar.

In the documentary, there's a scene where they go on about how they used $2 off the shelf hardware store tape measures for the cubsat antennas instead of a 1000x more expensive dedicated solution. Surprisingly, this is a common practice in the cubsat community.
https://www.reddit.c...d_a_1u_cubesat/

They also stress that most of the electronic components are from consumer level mobile phone technology.  One of their Planet Labs' early prototypes was actually an off the shelf phone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhoneSat

 

The ethos of Planet Labs and other smallsat developers is that the notion that space technology has to be exotic, ultra expensive, and "pedigreed" is an outmoded, dinosaur way of thinking.

Meade's consumer level maksutov optics are well regarded.  If there were a demand, I don't see why they couldn't match the level of Cumberland.  If you produce the components in-house or own the supplier, then that's another way to obviate the supplier risk factor.

Edited by abe, 18 July 2024 - 09:36 AM.

[luxo II]

The quality of the optics matter and a Q will trump an ETX. “Well regarded” is b/s- Meade is also “well known” for having no definitive quantitative test of the optical quality and that they were around ¼ P-V is just pure dumb luck being spherical. Cumberland OTOH do test every set quantitatively and I’d bet in this case contractually guaranteed each set met a target such as 1/10 P-V - and with a test certificate. That kind of quality costs $$$.

Conversely there’s nothing special about antennas - a pice of bent coat hanger wire works just as well as the tape.

Edited by luxo II, 18 July 2024 - 09:45 AM.

[TOMDEY]

Agree with luxo II. Going cheap on satellites sounds good but fails the total integrated mission calculus. Getting it up there, orbital insertion, and (especially) operations (OP's) are the Lion's share of the cost. To optimize that, the differential twixt premium/reliable/proven hardware and cheap --- gets lost in the noise. Cheap is penny wise and pound foolish. But I'm admittedly biased --- worked on satellite design and build most of my career. My last projects, before happy retirement, were drones, JWST, etc.   Tom

[PXR-5]

Regarding Meade, I'm pretty certain they will be resurrected,
Heck, even Polaroid and Bell and Howell live on...

[abe]

Regarding Meade, I'm pretty certain they will be resurrected,
Heck, even Polaroid and Bell and Howell live on...

I was just thinking that a lot of consumer oriented telescope / optical manufacturers also have B2B or government businesses to bolster profits and mitigate the fickleness of the consumer marketplace, economic cycles etc.   For example:

 

- Cumberland Optical / Questar (selling to NRL, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman etc.)

- Intes, Intes Micro, TAL (eventually abandoning the consumer business for the defense business)

- Edmund Optics (eventually also giving up on the consumer business for B2B)

- Kodak (who at one time made the backup Hubble space telescope mirror before becoming just a brand)

If you look at the introduction that Questar Corporation provides, only one out of seven highlighted products is consumer oriented:

https://www.questarc...estar intro.pdf

The consumer market is hard for smaller companies to consistently make a profit in for reasons discussed elsewhere.  Government and B2B funding sources can be more predictable and more profitable.  It is possible (though perhaps difficult) for companies to do both well.   A Meade with an aerospace component would be better than no Meade.

Edited by abe, 19 July 2024 - 02:01 PM.

[SkipW]

Conversely there’s nothing special about antennas - a pice of bent coat hanger wire works just as well as the tape.

No, it wouldn't. A measuring tape can be coiled up for launch to save space and protect the antenna until deployment. Can't do that with a coat-hanger antenna, at least not easily.

[abe]

No, it wouldn't. A measuring tape can be coiled up for launch to save space and protect the antenna until deployment. Can't do that with a coat-hanger antenna, at least not easily.

They actually discuss this a bit in that Reddit thread:

"My university's CubeSat team has the same issue - for some reason, it is unreasonably expensive to buy the type of material measuring tape is made out of unpainted, because the minimum order quantity is something absurd like a 20 000 foot spool."

Also: http://www.ccars.org...eYagi/index.htm

The general point is that the consumer market enables things to be made in large numbers at a price point orders of magnitude less than if they were custom made so things shouldn't be evaluated for quality or fitness solely on the basis of cost.

p.s.  I used to work at an aerospace contractor on astronaut crew training and there's nothing particularly magical about spaceflight hardware.  Sometimes consumer stuff is more advanced.

Edited by abe, 19 July 2024 - 06:35 PM.

[SkipW]

They actually discuss this a bit in that Reddit thread:

"My university's CubeSat team has the same issue - for some reason, it is unreasonably expensive to buy the type of material measuring tape is made out of unpainted, because the minimum order quantity is something absurd like a 20 000 foot spool."

Also: http://www.ccars.org...eYagi/index.htm

The general point is that the consumer market enables things to be made in large numbers at a price point orders of magnitude less than if they were custom made so things shouldn't be evaluated for quality or fitness solely on the basis of cost.

p.s.  I used to work at an aerospace contractor on astronaut crew training and there's nothing particularly magical about spaceflight hardware.  Sometimes consumer stuff is more advanced.

I was at an AMSAT (the Amateur Radio Satellite group) meeting sometime in the '80s. One of the speakers showed slides of early OSCAR (Ham Radio) satellites. One of them was of one of the satellites - the actual spaceflight hardware, not a prototype or test article - undergoing "environmental testing" sitting in the grass of someone's lawn with its yellow measuring tape antenna elements extended.

 

One nice thing about using an off-the-shelf hardware store measuring tape for something like this is that it's easy to cut it to length. It doesn't even require any additional measuring equipment!

 

Military and spaceflight stuff often uses well-proven (i.e., "old") parts and protocols even when there's much higher-performance stuff available for less money. I worked for a DoD contractor, and we were routinely using 1980s-vintage communications protocols until I retired in 2014. It did the job, was extremely stingy with bandwidth, and was very reliable, but not exactly the hot new setup! Since I retired, I have heard that they finally moved away from that system. I suspect that new hardware that supported it was simply no longer available.