What would one need to do to get an amateur satellite into orbit?

Question

I've recently become interested in amateur satellite packet radio, and I've seen that the bandwidth and thus the bitrate is extremely low on most amateur satellites, not even factoring in noise. So I wanted to create my own (extremely small) amateur satellite which has an uplink and downlink in the gigahertz frequency range, which should provide the necessary bandwidth and bitrate I and many other amateur satellite packet radio enthusiasts are craving.

So how do we get a satellite in orbit?

What would it cost to piggyback on a space shuttle mission?

Is amateur rocketry a viable option to get a satellite into orbit and what would be the cost of such a project?

Are there any regulatory bodies that I should be aware of that enforce activities in the air and in space?

Answer 1

Astronautical engineer here, welcome to the small satellite community!

Firstly, it's important to recognize that the FCC tightly regulates the radio spectra available to satellites and amateur broadcasters, so before even considering how to launch your spacecraft, you should make sure your payload is legal. The FCC tables on frequency allocations can be found here; you'll be interested in all the bands with allocations to "Amateur-Satellite". Note that some of these frequency allocations are not bi-directional, so double check in the detailed notes on each band to make sure you understand the limits.

As to launch costs, there are a couple of launch service providers who offer payload space for small satellites to ride alongside a much larger payload, which they term "secondary payloads". A service provider can typically squeeze half a dozen or more secondary payloads into a launch, which means these smaller payloads only pay a fraction of the overall cost of the launch.

Launch providers generally don't make their costs available to the public, for competitive reasons; you'd usually have to contact one to request a quote, and the cost may vary depending on the launch window, vehicle, and how many other secondary payloads will be sharing the launch. For a ballpark estimate, you can use the table provided here.

It sounds like your spacecraft will be relatively small (what we would term a "nano satellite"), so you'd probably be most interested in everything to the left of the 50kg bracket in their table, which lists launch prices from 295 thousand dollars up to about 2 million. If your satellite is really small (e.g. a 1U CubeSat), the price may be even lower. As I said, your actual price will vary, so you really need to request a quote from a launch provider to get accurate numbers for your specific case.

Most launch providers also place a number of requirements on their customers, to ensure that they won't pose a safety risk to the launch vehicle or other payloads. Your satellite will have to meet certain structural criteria for how it mates with the launch vehicle (e.g. via lightband adapter, CubeSat Pod, etc.), the location of its center of mass, and vibration frequency response, which are usually spelled out in the launch vehicle technical data manual, such as this one for the Minotaur IV. Fortunately some of these requirements are less severe for secondary payloads, due to their small size, but you'll still need to do some level of analysis and/or testing to satisfy the launch provider that your design meets the requirements.

Answer 2

The Space Shuttle retired in 2011, and no amateur launch has ever reached orbit, but there are plenty of opportunities to piggyback on commercial and government launch services. Mostly this is arranged through a broker, for example Spaceflight Industries. A rough order of magnitude estimate for price would be US$50,000 / kg.

Answer 3

A TV show addressed this some years ago. What appears to be the full video on You-tube: (Link gone--tv show "How Hard Can It Be", Episode 3 -- "Homemade Rocket".) Owner's website with a few minutes of video: https://www.natgeotv.com/ca/how-hard-can-it-be/videos

This was a TV production, they obviously have a budget well above what most amateurs could bring to it. They quickly concluded that reaching orbit was out of the question within the scope of what they could do, so they set out to do what they could.

Their rocket--which cost thousands of dollars to build--made it something like 10 miles up. That's only a drop in the bucket compared to what it would take to reach orbit. (Simple illustration: To push a rocket to the edge of space costs you about 1,400 m/s minimum. To put a rocket in low orbit costs you about 9,800 m/s minimum.)

Also, by the time you're talking 9,800 m/s the rocket equation has become brutal. Good solid motors have an ISP of about 250, vs 450 for LH2/LO2. This means that pushing something to orbit with solids means a rocket several times bigger than with the good stuff--and note how big even the smallest orbital rockets are.

There are also major permission issues involved in such a launch. The normal safety laws of amateur rocketry can't handle an orbital launch, thus you have to convince the FAA and the government that your systems are safe even when they don't function as intended. You'll also need FCC licenses to talk to your rocket and a blaster's license for the range safety system. (Yes, there are high explosives on every rocket that goes up. The charges are fairly small as they are only meant to burst it, drag & the fuel finish the job. Watch the video of the failed SpaceX CRS-7 mission--the control computer detected a catastrophic failure and destroyed it. Likewise, the first Ariane 5 launch, the rocket tips, when it starts to break up the computer destroys it. Manned missions are not exempt--look hard enough and you can find video of the commanded destruct of the boosters in the Challenger disaster. This is hard to find as most of the video focuses on the disaster itself. The solid boosters were still burning after the big boom, though, but no longer had a guidance system. Note how their flight terminates in a big puff--that was a destruct order.)

Since the comment mentioned abbreviations: ISP: Specific impulse. (It's usually written as Impulse [sub]SPecific[/sub], hence the order of the letters.) This is a measure of a rocket's performance, the bigger the number the better. While the ratio is linear the ratio between performance and size is exponential.

LH2: Liquid hydrogen. (Hydrogen exists as a molecule of two hydrogen atoms, hence the 2.) Energetic but very nasty to deal with, enough so that it's not unusual to see a lesser fuel used in the first stage where performance isn't so critical.

LO2: Liquid oxygen. Again, a molecule of two atoms. Note that this is also sometimes labeled LOX. Not nearly so nasty as LH2 but still it needs some pretty careful handling because it can make little fires very big very quickly.

Answer 4

Obligatory XKCD What If.

Getting to orbit is not a a problem of just vertical distance. You also need to go really fast to stay in orbit (I assume you want your satellite to stay up there).

First, you have to go up about 100 KM, then you need to reach a speed of 8 km/s to stay in orbit. That's going to require a massive rocket.

Randal compared the orbital speed of ISS to a rifle bullet:

The ISS moves so quickly that if you fired a rifle bullet from one end of a football field, the International Space Station could cross the length of the field before the bullet traveled 10 yards.