• Question: how much would it cost to build a working satellite?

    Asked by stephen to Laurence on 29 Feb 2016.
    • Photo: Laurence O'Rourke

      Laurence O'Rourke answered on 29 Feb 2016:

      There are many types of satellites being built and their cost is dependent on what you want to do with them. If you want to build a small working satellite then the greatest cost is not building of the satellite but launching it on a rocket. If you can somehow get a cheap rocket, then you are half way there. Microsatellites or cubesats are very small – generally box shaped some 10cm or less per side. Cost comes down to how long you want it to stay alive. I worked on a small satellite which took a webcam and put it into a box which could allow it to survive in space – that was cheap – a few hundred euro. In reality, if I was to give a value, I’d say minimum 10,000 Euro to build it and 20,000-40,000 euro to launch it. Here’s an example of a cubesat that has launched if you want to know more : http://www.cubesatkit.com/

Comments

  • Photo: Aisling

    Aisling commented on :

    But if you were talking about a big satellite program, you might have to launch on your own (smaller satellites can be launched as co-passengers on other spacecrafts launch) so the cost of the launcher could be 20-100 million euro… A full size spacecraft could be hundreds of millions of euros and even up to a billion euros for some big programs like Galileo, which is the European GPS constellation