[time-nuts] TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit

Lux, Jim (337C) james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov
Thu Aug 6 02:08:58 UTC 2009


I don¹t believe either of those alternatives exists any more.   There was
also the ³getaway special² or GAScan, which sat in the Shuttle cargo bay.


It used to be that you could make your payload as ballast for almost free
(that's how the early Amateur radio sats were launched).  But now, the
launch service providers know that folks are willing to pay. The ³small sat²
business has been so successful that most amateur operations have been
priced out of the market. A university with an aerospace engineering program
could easily afford $100-200K for launch costs, which isn¹t much, spread
across a couple dozen class members. (For context, an introductory molecular
biology class could cost $6-10K just for reagents, gels, etc, to do simple
gene splicing and sequencing)

The leading low budget satellite alternative today, that¹s actually *real*
(in that you stand a half decent chance of a launch) is probably the
cubesats at $50K a crack.

Jim

On 8/5/09 5:58 PM, "Brooke Clarke" <brooke at pacific.net> wrote:

> Hi Christopher:
> 
> There are other options.  NASA used to have a program where they would launch
> your satellite from a paint can using a spring.  There's also one where the
> size is the same as a ping-pong ball.  In both cases there is provision for
> turning on something at the time of launch.  The temperature (and need for
> specialized batteries) is important in both cases.
> 
> Have Fun,
> 
> Brooke Clarke
> http://www.prc68.com
> 





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