A touch of glass for nanosatellites

Glass nanosatellites could cut the high-costs and lengthy production times normally associated with the spacecraft, claim researchers.

A team at the Aerospace Corporation in California have built a demonstrator — 100 times smaller than conventional satellites — measuring 4in in diameter and half an inch thick. It could lead to satellites that can be mass-produced and mass-customised for particular missions.

William Hansen, senior researcher in AC’s nanotechnology department, said that efficient satellite production would make it possible to launch a huge number of satellites to cover a large area.

‘We feel that you could have thousands of these in space at once, and even though their mission time may be short it would be easy to launch a thousand more,’ he said.

According to Hansen, the organisation’s current thinking is that the satellites could be placed in space in a co-ordinated array, where hundreds of them could be linked up and used as a giant antenna, with each satellite working in unison.