ARLA/CLUSTER: Radioamadora desenvolve CubeSat`s para encontrar Exoplanetas

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

How a Tiny Satellite Could Find Another Earth

Time Magazine carry a report on the work of radio amateur Sara Seager
KB1WTW who is developing a CubeSat called ExoplanetSat, that will
search for new planets.

Time report that unlike the massive and expensive Kepler probe used by
NASA the ExoplanetSat is a tiny satellite, just 10x10x30cm.

They say:
"What makes ExoplanetSat even more un-NASA-like is that it began as a
class project — although admittedly, the class was at MIT. It was a
design-and-build course, which the university’s engineering students
have to take in order to graduate. In a recent semester, the class was
co-taught by Sara Seager [KB1WTW] an astrophysicist who has done
groundbreaking research studying how the atmospheres of planets
orbiting distant stars might look like from earthly telescopes. Seager
recruited five science undergrads to join her engineers, on the theory
that out in the real world, they’d eventually have to work with
engineers anyway."

The group lead by Sara KB1WTW is developing the prototype ExoplanetSat
capable of monitoring a single, bright, sun-like star for two years.

Planned to launch late 2012 or 2013 it is hoped it will open the gates
for ExoplanetSat interest and funding. Once the funding doors are
opened, then the fleet of ExoplanetSats can be launched. The fleet may
contain as many as a hundred of these small satellites, each focused
on its own star.

Read the Times Magazine article at
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2114158,00.html

MIT paper on ExoplanetSat
http://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess-disseminate/1721.1/61644

Presentation Slides
http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~bklofas/Presentations/
DevelopersWorkshop2011/5_Smith_ExoplanetSat.pdf

PlanetQuest
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/