R-Selecting Tiny Probes To Shotgun Into Saturn’s Rings

August 16, 2026 by Tyler August 34 Comments

In ecology, there used to be a concept — now largely unfashionable — that species could be described as r- or K-selected, depending on how they treat their offspring. An elephant that has one calf every few years and devotes immense resources to them is adopting a K-selection strategy — much as NASA traditionally has to its flagship probes, like Cassini. A sea turtle who leaves hundreds of eggs in a clutch on the beach and leaves without saying “good luck”, content in the knowledge that one of them will probably make it to adulthood is engaging in an r-selected strategy, and it’s this strategy that [Dr. Michael Rubenstein] is proposing for a next-generation mission to Saturn as part of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program for 2026. Entitled “Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere”

The concept is pretty simple: the rings are a horrifying mess of dust, debris, and ice bits of all sizes that represent almost certain death for a spacecraft. By launching 10,000 femtosatellites, those odds of almost certain death become an almost certainty that one or more will make it through with precious data. In the immortal words of Lord Farquhar, “Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” With Cassini, NASA would never consider such a sacrifice. With itty-bity femtosatellites, it starts to make sense. We’ve been saying for years that the future of space is tiny, but these sacrificial probes would make even modern cubesats and picosatellites look big.

Thanks to [Richard HT] for the tip! His tip was to a podcast featuring [Dr. Rubenstein] with [Fraser Cain], which we’ve embedded below. It has a lot more details than NASA’s official blurb page.

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The Future Of Space Is Tiny

June 25, 2019 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

While recent commercial competition has dropped the cost of reaching orbit to a point that many would have deemed impossible just a decade ago, it’s still incredibly expensive. We’ve moved on from the days where space was solely the domain of world superpowers into an era where multi-billion dollar companies can join on on the fun, but the technological leaps required to reduce it much further are still largely relegated to the drawing board. For the time being, thing’s are as good as they’re going to get.

If we can’t count on the per pound cost of an orbital launch to keep dropping over the next few years, the next best option would logically be to design spacecraft that are smaller and lighter. Thankfully, that part is fairly easy. The smartphone revolution means we can already pack an incredible amount sensors and processing power into something that can fit in the palm of your hand. But there’s a catch: the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.

Often referred to as simply the “rocket equation”, it allows you to calculate (among other things) the ratio of a vehicle’s useful cargo to its total mass. For an orbital rocket, this figure is very small. Even with a modern launcher like the Falcon 9, the payload makes up less than 5% of the liftoff weight. In other words, the laws of physics demand that orbital rockets are huge.

Unfortunately, the cost of operating such a rocket doesn’t scale with how much mass it’s carrying. No matter how light the payload is, SpaceX is going to want around $60,000,000 USD to launch the Falcon 9. But what if you packed it full of dozens, or even hundreds, of smaller satellites? If they all belong to the same operator, then it’s an extremely cost-effective way to fly. On the other hand, if all those “passengers” belong to different groups that split the cost of the launch, each individual operator could be looking at a hundredfold price reduction.

SpaceX has already packed 60 of their small and light Starlink satellites into a single launch, but even those craft are massive compared to what other groups are working on. We’re seeing the dawn of a new era of spacecraft that are even smaller than CubeSats. These tiny spacecraft offer exciting new possibilities, but also introduce unique engineering challenges.

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A $1000 Tiny Personal Satellite

April 11, 2016 by Al Williams 52 Comments

If you ever read any old magazines, you might be surprised at how inexpensive things used to be. A U.S. postage stamp was six cents, a gallon of gas was $0.34, and the same amount of milk was $1.07. Everything is relative, though. The average household income back then was under $8,000 a year (compared to over $53,000 a year in 2014). So as a percentage of income, that milk actually cost about seven bucks.

The same is true of getting into orbit. Typical costs today just to get something into orbit has gone from–no pun intended–astronomical, to pretty reasonable. Lifting a pound of mass on the Space Shuttle cost about $10,000. On an Atlas V, it costs about $6,000. A Falcon Heavy (when it launches) will drop the cost to around $1,000 or so. Of course, that’s just the launch costs. You still have to pay for whatever you want to put up there. Developing a satellite can be expensive. Very expensive.

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