I remember reading somewhere that satellites are extra expensive for 2 reasons:
- launch costs are so high that doing exotic bespoke engineering might be worth it if it can shave off a few pounds
- once again because launches are expensive and rare, you cannot afford to make mistakes, so everything has to work perfectly
If you are willing to launch to lower orbits, and your launch vehicle is cheap, you are building in bulk, then you can compromise on engineering and accept a few broken sats
Undergrads afaik even high schoolers have built cubesats out of aluminum extrusions, hobbyist solar panels, and a tape measure as an antenna. These things probably dont do that much, but they are up there and they do work.
They are also expensive because there are unique challenges to making reliable spacecraft. E.g. cosmic rays and microgravity absolutely wreck electronics. Those undergrad cube sats are lucky to last more than a few months in the relative calm of low inclination, low altitude earth orbit. They would die on their first pass in a sun synchronous polar orbit.
I remember reading somewhere that satellites are extra expensive for 2 reasons:
- launch costs are so high that doing exotic bespoke engineering might be worth it if it can shave off a few pounds
- once again because launches are expensive and rare, you cannot afford to make mistakes, so everything has to work perfectly
If you are willing to launch to lower orbits, and your launch vehicle is cheap, you are building in bulk, then you can compromise on engineering and accept a few broken sats
Undergrads afaik even high schoolers have built cubesats out of aluminum extrusions, hobbyist solar panels, and a tape measure as an antenna. These things probably dont do that much, but they are up there and they do work.
They are also expensive because there are unique challenges to making reliable spacecraft. E.g. cosmic rays and microgravity absolutely wreck electronics. Those undergrad cube sats are lucky to last more than a few months in the relative calm of low inclination, low altitude earth orbit. They would die on their first pass in a sun synchronous polar orbit.
Pet satellites or cattle satellites?
Kessler satellites