It's bright up here...
I wonder if radiation and heat will become a problem? It's probably more than you get from the mobile phone on it's own. ;)
Boffins at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) have come up with a second zany satellite in their STRaND line, which will use Xbox Kinect technology to hook up with another satellite in space. Bits and pieces of the STRaND-1 nanosatellite Bits and pieces of the STRaND-1 nanosatellite STRaND, or Surrey Training Research …
I doubt it'll last long or that it's even designed to last long, space tends to have a bit of a radiation problem.
That's why satellites, spacecraft etc usually use these kind of processors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAD750
Instead of off the shelf consumer kit, because the radiation messes up and has a nasty tendency of killing normal microprocessors.
Not exactly true. The orbits most of SSTL craft fly in is Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with an altitude of around 700km. This orbit is relatively benign. You only need to start looking to used rad-hard components in higher orbits (MEO or beyond)
Intel 368 processors have been used successfully in this orbit, with missions that exceed 4 years service.
http://microsat.sm.bmstu.ru/e-library/SSTL/Subsys_OBC386.pdf
I'm sure you can search for other instances of the use of this processor, and longer mission lifetimes than this.
As has been mentioned, the radiation issue.
Also Kinect doesn't have a long range and there is also a lot of IR interference on orbit.
Protecting the optics in sun facing positions will be challenging.
It's why Radar is the preferred solution, if expensive.
Using the ACC (Adaptive cruise control) unit from high end cars would be another possibility.
> As has been mentioned, the radiation issue.
That was my first thought. However, the article says it is for docking the satellite, presumably something that happens after hours in orbit, rather than days or months.
>Protecting the optics in sun facing positions will be challenging.
To keep with the off-the-shelf ethos: A self-darkening welding mask.
With regards to the radiation,
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/llis/0824.html
Is interesting.
"To keep with the off-the-shelf ethos: A self-darkening welding mask."
They're LCD based. Interested to see how that behaves in the near vacuum of LEO.
Also in direct sunlight you can see temps over 200degC so I think there may be additional reliability issues there.
Facts you may find useful #1: Microsoft are not SPECTRE from the James Bond movies. They're just a reasonably successful and bog-standardly money hungry corporation like most others.
If you want to insult the very clever people who not only came up with this but have the nouse to actually implement it by suggesting they're just a PR stunt, then that says more about you then them.
http://live.leapmotion.com/about.html
"~100x more accurate than any other motion sensing/natural user interface on Earth." :)
"... David was working on a PhD in mathematics from UNC Chapel Hill and left to pursue Leap Motion. Before that, he was conducting research for NASA on fluid mechanics."
Haven't we been here before ? You can either spend billions on a perfect, tailor made solution, or you can pick things up off the shelf, relatively cheaply, and have loads of them in case of failure.
Good to see it happening in the UK, too. Can we have a sweepstakes on how long till it goes south
They'll juuuust about be ready to do a full space test of the technology and the funding will be cut because "we can't see the benefit over chucking up one expensive big satellite on a huge rocket stack." and that'll be the end of it. Until some enterprising foreign company actually does it and reaps the economic benefits.
Oh look. I appear to have my cynical hat on today.