What are the rules & regulations on having my own satellite orbiting the earth?

Question

besides the fact that it is expensive toy, I would like to have one of my own flying around taking pictures as I wish.

Answer 1

It's being done.

http://www.spacer.com/news/nanosat-00i.html

Answer 2

Worst case? None. Assuming that you are a country like North Korea which cares little about what the world thinks.

If you are a little bit more civilized, you might want to live by international space laws:

http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/index.html

If you happen to be a US citizen, chances are, you will be working with a US contractor to launch your satellite. They will most likely take care of all the local legal formalities for you, like a launch permit, telling the US airforce about the launch windows so you won't start a nuclear war etc.. I believe it is really up to the people who are the ones launching the rocket rather than the owners of the payload to do this. Of course, if you were to launch a dangerous payload like a nuclear reactor, that would be a different matter altogether. Not sure you would get a permit for that, at all, if you were a private company rather than NASA or the US military/NSA.

But as far as I can tell you are likely to never even get close to the pieces of equipment (for technical as well as for security reasons, a lot of the technology is still secret) that get your payload into orbit and I would assume that much of the legal formalities are being taken care of as well as part of your contract with the launch agent.

Answer 3

Well, you hit the first rule on the head: the first rule is that you have to be able some how to pay for it.

The second rule is that you have to be able to find a way to get it up there. It use to be that only a few countries had agencies capable of launching a payload into orbit. Now, there are many space agencies that actually compete for the business of launching payloads into space.

The third rule is that you have to get that agency's government to approve of your satellite, which is probably the least likely of them all, because there are NO governments in the world that would like anybody capable of looking down upon their secret facilities and taking pictures, and would want to have dominant control over such a satellite themselves, thereby making it every bit as unlikely that you would be allowed to take pictures as you wished, as if you couldn't afford it, or couldn't get it launched.

Answer 4

Don't believe when ppl tell you it's impossible.
The fact is, the procedures is quite simple.

1) Go buy a satelite, there are many options sold on ebay! (You can't believe what you can buy online these days)!
2) Do the online registration, you will be asked to enter the serial number,
3) Submit your satelite to NASA, go to Private Satelites Dept.
They will fly your satelite to the desired orbiting lanes.
4) There you go, operate your own satelite from the convenience from your PC, taking pics and go nuts.

Oh, one small thing, don't forget the annual retribution payment for about $29.9,- You can get 10% discount if you pay 2 years in advance.

Answer 5

The paperwork is massive. Especially for launching it. But you could probably buy an existing satellite that is already in orbit. Companies buy operating satellites from each other fairly often.

Answer 6

I believe that space is free, as long as you don't hit anyone else's satellite.