[AR] Re: What makes a useful launch vehicle?
- From: Ed LeBouthillier <codemonky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, arocket <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2019 10:16:40 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
A question for all you guys out there building satellites:
[...]
What would make or break this vehicle? (Obviously, until we
fly we have nothing, etc.)
Although not a satellite builder, I would think that you need to worry about
environmental factors.
Many of the existing cubesats are going on existing launch vehicles and
therefore, I'll guess that your vehicle needs to provide a launch environment
very similar to other existing launch vehicles.
That means that max vibration, temperatures, max experienced G's etc are
significant. If you don't meet those maximum environmental conditions, then a
cubesat built for these other vehicles may not be able to fly on your vehicle.
So, look at the Payload User's Guides (PUGs) for other existing vehicles for
their flight environmental conditions and make sure your vehicle can meet
similar conditions. Additionally, some of the larger vehicles can provide
"services" like ejection/start signals.
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