Question Satellite to Monitor Oil Spill?

[anemazoso]

I haven't heard anything about this happening but:

Wouldn't the oil spill be the perfect application for a small, cheap, dedicated satellite that could be put together within months to monitor and measure the oil? If we can send sats to find minerals on other planets and moons shouldn't this be possibe?

So I have a couple questions in adittion to the above:

1) Is it possible within say 4-6 months?
2) Is it needed? Are existing assets in space all that is needed?

 

[garyw]

Already being done:

http://www.examiner.com/x-5738-Poli...he-progression-of-the-BP-oil-spill-from-space

 

[anemazoso]

Ya, I know there are existing sats that can take photos but is there no better than visual spectrum? I would think instruments could be built to measure precisely where and how much oil (and dispersants for that matter) there is?

 

[Andy44]

Sounds like the kind of thing the Space Shuttle used to be good for, piggyback rides for university satellites and such, thanks to its extra capacity.

I imagine if you work with a university that has the right money and connections and expertise, you could get something like this built for fairly cheap, depending on how much capability you really can live without.

Then comes the problem of finding an affordable launch vendor.

---------- Post added at 09:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 PM ----------

It just ocurred to me that this might be a good bolt-on payload for the ISS. That would take care of attitude control, power, navigation, etc. All you'd need are thermal control, power and data connections to the ISS bus. The crew could turn it on or off and there should be some way to route the data and control the payload without taking up the crew's time.

Good luck getting that through NASA's red tape, though. Since the ISS is manned, they would be extra anal about it, too.