Today, we have Sandy Antunes, author of "DIY Satellite Platforms." He is going to talk

about his book and how you can build a satellite. Sandy welcome. Thanks for joining us. Sandy:

Thank you. It is good to be here, Steve. Stephen: Tell us, you've recently written a book for

O'Reilly Media, "DIY Satellite Platforms." What is that book, exactly? Sandy: The book

is the culmination of the series of mistakes, attempts, and home built satellite building.

The idea is, I made all of the mistakes so no one else has to and figure out how to build

your own satellite in your own basement and documented it. Stephen: That's cool. It's

the first of four series? Sandy: Right. The first one is about building the satellite

and in the second one how to test it for rocket launch and for space. Space is a hostile environment.

Vacuum is tough. It turns out the rocket launch is where most satellites fail. The second

one is how you can convert an orbital sander to a shake rig and how you can make a vacuum

chamber out of a pressure cooker and all the things that you need to make a space test

chamber in your basement. Stephen: How did you get into this? Sandy: I was doing science

writing. My background is as an astronomer and I had done some satellite operations for

NASA, but I had never actually built stuff. When I was doing science writing, Interorbital

announced the $8,000 TubeSat kit. My thought is they are including a launch for $8,000

schematics and a launch. So for mid life crisis, do I want to get a motorcycle or build a satellite?

Obviously, I can guess how most of the people listening to this are going to decide, also.

When that happened, I decided to see if we are really in a new space age where you can

make your own personal satellite. I started making it in my basement and documenting it.

I called it Project Calliope after the Muse, because it is going to convert the ionosphere

to music. Stephen: It's going to beam that down? That is awesome. Sandy: It's like going

to the ocean and hearing the waves. You close your eyes and you hear the waves. You get

the feel of the ebb and the flow of what is going on. We don't know that for space. My

thought is let's convert orbits to sounds so people get a sense and the feel of the

rhythm of space. Stephen: Nice. You obviously have technical training. You are an astronomer,

you are a science writer, but you didn't have hardware experience for this. It was something

you could go down to your basement and build and learn. I don't think you are a dotcom

millionaire. Correct me if you are wrong. This technology is so affordable now someone

who is dedicated can actually build a space craft. Sandy: You don't have to be that dedicated.

It is down to the hobbyist level now in terms of building it. There is so many tools and

support in the maker community. The schematics for the PCBs are out there. There are web

companies that you send the plans to and they will send you the boards. This satellite has

four main boards plus the instrument. Each board you can get made by a one off PCB fab

for $40.00. We are away from the old days when you had to be an electrical engineer

and lay out copper traces and dip things in baths. Now it's kits. You get the pieces and

the job of the builder is designing and integrating parts that you can get. You have heard about

3D printers, now if you want to make a pay load that has a custom shape, you can get

a 3D printer and print things. It's a huge time to be a maker. Everyone is already doing

adventurous stuff with sending iPhones up in high altitude balloons. Let's go one higher

and actually go to orbit. Stephen: How did you decide to document all of this? I am sure

a lot of people said they were gong to build a space craft, but you said, "I am going to

do it, and document everything I did." Is that just the science writer in you? Sandy:

That's the science writer, the teacher, and the noisy part of me. Me doing it doesn't

do anything but prove something to myself. But me documenting it, means other people

can take it what I do and make it better. It's the difference between playing guitar

in your basement and then going out to open mic night or hooking up with a band. In one

of them you learn a skill but in the other one you are building something bigger than

yourself and having people walk away and hopefully outdo you. Saying, "that was great, but I

am going to push this even further." Yes do that. Stephen: Has this become bigger than

what you originally though. You were going to build it in your basement, now there is

a book on O'Reilly Media. Has it gained traction that you didn't think was possible? Sandy:

I haven't got invited to a TED Talk yet so I am not going to say it has gone as big as

I would have like it to, but certainly has gone to the level I had hoped to. Which is

the maker community has gotten interested in it. I have gotten criticism and the positive

feedback. I have got people saying, "Oh, man [AMstat] already did that back in the 40's."

I have got at least three other projects that said they are inspired by my weekly blog and

have done their own TubeSat. One of them is building a pulse plasma engine. He said he

is following all that I did. I thought he is so much smarter than me, this is cool.

Stephen: The space craft is built out of home kits and PCB boards that are $40. How long

do you think this spacecraft will last in orbit? There's radiation and all sorts of

stuff. Sandy: It's a short project. You will probably get about six weeks, no more than

three months. They are launched into low earth orbit about 250 kilometers up, or about 400

miles. The orbit will decay very quickly because you have a small irregular obit tumbling.

They will ecologically burn up in reentry after a very short period. This is about trying

new technology and experimenting on stuff that can hopefully move on to something new.

Stephen: If you were in a higher orbit would the orbit be the determining factor or the

space craft degrading in radiation? Sandy: Good question. A typical mass submission used

to use custom parts and then they realized it was cheaper to use off the shelf high end

parts. NASA missions have a life of two years but often go for eight or more. The [inaudible

06:50] community has built some larger micro sacs that have lasted over a decade. I think

if you have a higher orbit, you could definitely get several years even with home parts. Stephen:

The limiting factor now is the orbit you are putting it in not the fact that you are getting

off shelf components and it's degrading. It's the fact they are falling back from the sky.

Sandy: Yes, the orbiter is the limit for everything in space. Everything in space we want to do

is limited by getting up higher. If we can't get up high we can't do anything. That's what

drives your weight limit. The weight limit drives you only have a certain power budget.

You can only put a certain amount of instruments. You can only last a certain period of time.

That's why we need better rockets. I am not a rocket scientist so I can't build a better

rocket, but I can build a satellite. Stephen: You are using the Interorbital TubeSat kit.

Is that what you are using? Sandy: Yes. And the old prop. Stephen: I love the prop. They

have been saying $8,000 a launch for a while now. Do you know how close they are to achieving

their orbital mission? Sandy: They are always about a year out. Part of this is rocket science.

I always joke you can't send a rocket up until you have blown up enough rockets to prove

you know what you are doing. They are still in the blowing up stage. I understand they

have their FAA clearances to do some ballistic launches and they are doing tests with that.

They recently about a month or two ago announced they had NASA contract to do some further

research. So, they are getting some NASA money, which shows they have moved into a slightly

bigger pond. Although, they don't like it when I say, "if Interorbital is not the first

cheap provider into space, someone else will be." They are one of several players. They

are one of the noisiest. I love working with them. They get the open source ethos and the

idea of working with hobbyists and other people. I hope they succeed, but I am also predicting

someone will, if not them, someone else. Stephen: I know there is a new nanosat launched that

challenge that is out there. I was at Space Access 12 and there was a couple of panels

that were going to compete. Seems there are a lot of people going for it. I agree some

sort of nano launcher will bring down the cost, but I think it will make it possible

for more people like you to build a satellite. $8,000 that's amazing. Sandy: Yes, it is about

a factor 10 cheaper than previous access. One thing I discovered recently as I started

doing this more, I wanted to show you could do it even if you are not part of a university

or team, really the lone maker. There are teams out there doing it. It turns out that

NASA and other people will broker a launch opportunity if you have a working cubesat.

It's not if you get a launch slot and then you build it like I am. Instead if you build

a cubesat, there's several universities and NASA that will help you find someone that

has spare room to put your cubesat on. I didn't even realize this. Most rockets launch with

wasted weight, because if the rocket is built to launch 2,000 lbs and the pay load is 1,850

then they have to put something in for the extra 150 to keep their cap calculations.

The fact that every rocket that is launching a satellite is sending up junk, dead weight,

is horrifying. There are people that are brokering to try and replace that with Picosatellites.

There are opportunities now. Stephen: Those are opportunities for individuals not necessarily

universities or non-profits. It's anyone with a working cubesat. Sandy: Anyone with a working

cubesat who can get connected with the right people. Its still friend of a friend and that's

the barrier that Interorbital did. Interorbital did it the old capitalistic way. If you have

the money, we will fly you straight out. I'm not good with the backroom deal. Stephen:

You are kind of like the FedEx. You give us this money and we will put it up there. Sandy:

Exactly. The cubesat community is like the mafia. I know someone, and they will do a

favor for you. Stephen: One of the things I was curious about, I worked for a defense

contractor. I was a mechanical engineer. One of the things they always stressed was ITAR,

International Traffic and Arms Regulations. Was that an issue when you were posting your

stuff? I know a lot of it is off the shelf components. PicoSATs, was that ever an issue?

Sandy: Some of ITAR could be summarized as don't ask, don't tell. Stephen: I know there

are several issues. Sandy: I have not run into any ITAR issues for the reason you said.

I am doing off the shelf, openly available materials. That said I am trying to avoid

ITAR and policy as much as possible because it is very confusing and a very unsettled

territory right now. One of the issues with going with a broker like Interorbital is that

they are handling the mountain of paperwork. The joke is that you need to have a stake

of paperwork equal to the height of your rocket, before you can launch. Stephen: I heard that.

Sandy: They are handling a lot of the permission issue, that when I give them the satellite

and they check it and accept it that's going to handle a lot of permission issues. That

said there are things you cannot fly. You cannot fly an imaging detector that points

to the earth without getting special permission. You cannot fly a broadcast device even for

commanding or communicating with your satellite without negotiating spectrum with either the

FCC of the International IARU for amateurs. There are some policy stuff that I have to

step into. Some of these things that I am discovering or blundering into are why I am

doing the blog and the book, so that other people can say, oh okay and be informed. Stephen:

You are talking about broadcasting. Your spacecraft is going to send the signal back to earth

you have to get the FCC involved? Sandy: FCC if I was doing it as for private spectrum,

but if I am using amateur ham radio which I am then the IRU is the negotiating body

and you basically give them your launch window and they negotiate out who is using spectrum.

A couple of requirements you will get no more than 10% of any given orbit. So for a 90 minute

orbit you get maybe nine minutes of contact. Stephen: Okay. Sandy: You have to be able

to shut down your transmitter instantly if it is infringing in some way, shape, or form.

One technical solution there that I recommend people do have your transmitter automatically

shut down within any 10 minute period so that you have to activate it to turn on. That way

you are not going to have a promiscuous satellite that is corrupting the spectrum. I recently

discovered GENSO which is an ESA European space agency network for pica satellite communication.

The idea is you get hardware that matches their system, hook up to their server and

you get to use any other GENSO to command your satellite as long as you make your antenna

system available to other satellite people. There is some interesting stuff growing now

in the small pica satellite realm. Stephen: There's a whole European communications network

for small satellites. Sandy: I have one that has several U.S. universities and partners

participating already. It is for the amateur and university level space. Stephen: There

is no issue for you participating as an American citizen in the European network? Sandy: I

know that U.S. universities have participated. I don't know if I as an individual can participate.

That is one of the things I am doing some research on. Stephen: What's going to be harder?

Building your spacecraft or getting through all of the regulations to build your space

craft and to launch it. Sandy: Originally I thought it would be an engineering challenge.

I would have to learn a lot of engineering and fabricating. It does turn out that the

figuring out what to do in the policy stuff is about as hard. Stephen: Amazing. I talked

with Michael Clive who started the Mojave Maker Hackerspace. One of the questions I

asked, "is it possible to make space missions out of maker stations?" He took the human

side of it. He didn't really talk about the technology. It was taking for granted technologies

there but it is more of a human management. Can you organize people to do this? We have

got away from the technologies as the limiting factor. It's the people and the policies is

now what is holding us back. Sandy: It is. That is where the universities are stepping