Snidely wrote:
David Spain scribbled something like ...

You know I wonder if there is a supplemental business to be had here.

I was under the impression that LEO launches that included secondary
payloads was pretty common these days. Several school-based microsats, for
instance. Indeed, the Glory satellite entry in Whicked Foot says
"The Taurus rocket also carried three small CubeSat satellites built by
university students in Montana, Colorado and Kentucky."

So maybe someone is already carrying out that supplemental business.


Well I've read plenty of stories about govt sponsored payloads that let out
extra capacity to smaller players (like schools and universities) but I was
not aware of any commercial business that did so.

You'd think payload aggregation would be a great way to cut the cost of LEO
access to folk w/o deep pockets. Sure you may have to wait longer to get there
(until the bus fills up) but for the dramatic reduction in cost it could well
be worth the wait.

This is just another form of the old value added reseller we see in IT all the
time. Or if you will, leasing cloud computation. It's the same idea.

It'd be kind of fun to design such a bus. I've been thinking about it off and
on today. You could imagine a cylindrical metal cage like device with
compartments running along the long axis of the cylinder, with the inner axis
containing spring or otherwise mechanically triggered devices for ejecting the
payload modules. Each payload module would consist of a smaller cylinder that
fits into the larger. The entire structure would of course have to fit within
the payload fairing of a Falcon 1e and meet its total weight restrictions.

Most compartments would be of a 'standard' size but a few could be double or
even triple sized to hold larger payloads.

As a customer, I would give you the dimensions and the cost to 'rent' space on
the bus. You would have to design your payload to fit within the bus and be
compatible with the bus ejection mechanism, but that is about it.

Once in orbit the outer shell fairing would be ejected, exposing the payload
modules which would then be individually ejected out of the bus using the
ejectors.

It's fun to toy around with ideas like this. I have no clue if $$$ could be
made this way however...

Dave