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----------------------------------------------------------------------- Tiny, insect-like satellites could become space explorers ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SAN FRANCISCO (December 10, 1997 9:06 p.m. EST) - Swarms of tiny, insect-like satellites weighing about half an ounce apiece could provide a cheap alternative for space exploration, scientists said this week. Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have designed new "microsatellites" with control systems based on simple animal neurons which they say could make complex, bulky spacecraft obsolete. "These microsatellites can go where expensive, big satellites can't go and they can perform a class of business and science missions that no other platform can do," researcher Kurt Moore said in a news release at the American Geophysical Union meeting. "Nobody knows how little you can go," he said. "That's what we aim to find out." The little satellites, measuring just three inches across, could be sent on missions to measure solar wind and map different parts of the Earth, the team said. They could prove more reliable than conventional, large satellites because their simple robotic controllers have been built to survive in almost any environment -- and can work in concert, enabling the swarm to continue even if one individual unit fails. Calling the microsatellites "the logical end of one evolutionary trend in space exploration," the researchers explained that their control system reproduces a pulse similar to an animal's instinctive twitch. Simple enhancements of the control system produced "a walking, insect-like robot with remarkable survival skills", the team said, adding that the micro-bugs appeared "nearly impervious to electrical or mechanical fault and surprisingly capable of self assembly and collective behavior." One example demonstrated at the American Geophysical Union meeting was a microsatellite designed to orient itself in Earth's magnetic field by turning automatically toward the brightest available light source, the sun. This "instinct" could be harnessed to help scientists measure Earth's magnetosphere, with tiny satellites equipped to measure exactly how much energy is transferred to Earth's magnetic field by solar wind, the team said. "We've never really been able to do real-time monitoring," Moore said. "With hundreds of these microsatellites, we should be able to do that." Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy. Copyright 1997 Nando.net Copyright 1997 Reuters <http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/health/121097/health4_21405_noframes.html> -----------------------------------------------------------------------