Orbit Your Own Satellite For $8,000 | Hacker News Reader

Orbit Your Own Satellite For $8,000

spacefellowship.com

44 pointsedw51915 comments

Guys, Interorbital has little credibility _to date_. They have been around for quite a while without having much to show for. Maybe, just maybe, it is true that they have everything lined up and ready to go and just need the funding, but so claim pretty much any other crazy space startup. Some of these actually have pretty sizable working rocket engines and have flown experimental vehicles already, yet they make humbler claims. I'd just take the news with a grain of salt. It's easy to talk.

Again, they may be for real. In any case I'd expect to see some of the new companies succeed in creating a cheap nanosatellite launcher within 5 years.

Orbit your own satellite? Isn't that a bit like eating your own mouth?

Maybe it's a bit like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_star#Use_in_astrophysics

They really need to put the specs online and work on their presentation - I love everything I see at their website, but the site itself looks extremely amateurish...which is a pity, because their idea of fractional ownership of rockets has some merit. Also: http://www.interorbital.com/CubeSat%20BOOST-UP%20Program%20R... for a more detailed outline of their business model.

Meantime, the engineering challenge is: what would you like to do, given a power source, transceiver, ~200 gram payload (although apparently they're stackable in groups of 2, 3, 4), and a few weeks' worth of low-earth orbit?

It is probably only good for communications. A spinner with poor attitude control (you do not really have a lot of room for good mechanical or optical rate gyros, not to mention the lack of any means to perform orbital maneuvers) and small payloads will probably not work well for imaging or radar.

However, there are a lot of companies and universities looking into small satellites, since it is much, much cheaper than launching larger satellites with expensive payloads. There is a lot of research in the area and a lot of small sat conferences as well (e.g. http://www.smallsat.org/). If this pans out, it could be the end of the US government's large satellite oligopoly, which currently consists of only a few large companies like Lockheed Martin (disclaimer: that is where I work) and Boeing.

Get a double and put some attitude control on it. You should get almost a KG of payload that way. CO2 jets.

This seems like it would make a really exciting group project. I can just imagine all the hard work that would go into getting the software right, then actually going to watch the launch together and impatiently waiting for first contact with your very own satellite.

Online maps in my area are not good (not enough details, and most detailed map - maps.google.com is something like 5 years old). I saw on the website they can take pictures - but I have no idea how detailed those picture might be? Also what equipment is needed, prices, legal issues etc. Anyone have details on that?

that's very cheap, but it doesn't seem cost effective, they plan to deploy 32 satellites per launch, I sincerely doubt that launching a rocket into space costs less than $256,000 they'd generate per launch

It doesn't really say that they are going to be the only thing on the rocket. Also note that it isn't putting them in permanent orbit so possibly that reduces the cost?

This looks like the company providing the launch vehicle, http://www.interorbital.com/Neptune%20Page_1.htm

According to the wikipedia page, the Neptune 30 can carry 30 KG. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interorbital_Systems

Their website is terrible. It looks like something from Geocities. I went to Wikipedia to see if they were real or not.

I love the way there's a "discreet" LCD-style counter at the bottom of the page. That's very Geocities!

I would have thought that a company trying to do something so glamorous would have made more effort with presentation on its website.

Sigh, so close and yet so far...........

I was thinking the same thing, but I'm wondering if this isn't subsidized by the company's other endeavors. It'd be great advertising and give them a good bit of mindshare.

Whatever the case I think (relatively) affordable space solutions will be coming soon.

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