How much does it cost to have your own satellite put into orbit?

Question

Surely there is some rough pricing out there on the cost to get it into orbit and the estimated annual costs to keep it there and running? Perhaps the type of satellite would make a bit diff in price. I am interested in a satellite that would simply receive and retransmit simple data packets of no more than 1 meg or 2 at a time. No video or streaming audio or anything like that.

1 - 2 meg data packets are more than enough for the type of data I would need to send. More importantly I want to keep the data size small to achieve better reception on the ground. My understanding is larger data requires a stronger/better signal. My signal/data needs to be picked up indoors without any external dish or antenna. Currently looking at microstrip antennas that seem to fit the bill.

Answer 1

Where do you want it? In synchronous orbit above the equator at your longitude. or in low earth orbit, so it flies over your house at least once per day?

There is a class of very small "micro-satellite" that can contain a low-powered repeater and enough control function and solar panels to keep itself alive and pointed correctly. To construct one of these and get it in a launch manifest as part of a larger package (you'd tag along with a larger payload) can actually be done for around a million dollars.

Google: Stanford microsat
to see how they did it, cheap.

If you want one in geosync orbit, the repeater must be much more powerful, the antennas must be more complex, the station keeping must be more complex, etc. etc., so the satellite cost goes way up, the weight goes up, the launch costs go up. In this case the first guy is more accurate: $150 million might be about right -- but if you really did it yourself, in your garage so-to-speak, maybe you can do it for 15 million (because 10 million of that will be launch cost).

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Answer 2

Receive and transmit 1 meg or 2 at a time. Is there a market for that miniscule transfer of data? Anyway, to launch a "small" satellite would be $200 million; that does not include the cost of the satellite.

Answer 3

it would likely ruin up throughout re-get right of entry to, purely examine out what befell to the commute for the period of the failure of the re-get right of entry to technique, debris would hit the floor and according to danger ruin homestead windows, yet no significant injury would be brought about. the only i'd agonize approximately is that a number of those satellites use a radioactive for an power source that would reason some an infection.

Answer 4

150 million

Answer 5

$3,000 to $10,000 per pound depending on a variety of factors including who launches it (India, South America, France, Russia, US, Japan).

That's just to get it into orbit.