On 28 Sep 2015 at 4:09, Bruce  Johnson wrote:

> Also subject of interest: what does orbital space around a civilized planet with a few thousand years of routine spaceflight look like?
>
> How hard is it to spoof a real satellite, or just put one in orbit? We´re at the point now where people with a few grand can put up a cubesat: <http://makezine.com/2014/04/11/your-own-satellite-7-things-to-know-before-you-go/>
>
> What happens when you can just drive a truck, I mean `air/raft´ into orbit and drop it off?

Well, STC is gonna be *really* annoyed with you if you don't have the
paperwork done. Or if you haven't placed it in the orbit you got
approved for.

It won't be as bad as GEO is now, because you'll be able to remove
dead satellites and likely be able to get by with less seperation
than we do now. Both due to the easier & cheaper access.

Frankly, given the easier & cheaper acesss, unless you need an "odd"
orbit, there will probably be satellite "farms" you can fasten your
package to. Think of them like a server farm. You supply the gear,
they supply power and some minimal maintenance and a communications
bus.

So most folks will just rent a "slot" on a farm.

Some will just be a big framework with power supplies and some
manuevering units to keep them in their assigned orbit and a shared
comm buss with transcievers that you get a share of the time on.

Any maintence would be somebody in a cutter wandering over on a
schedule. Or for an "emergency" that the user was willing to pay for.
Like a server farm, you may be able to pay to install or
repair/upgrade your gear yourself, but you'lll have somebody there to
make sure you aren't messing up anybody else's gear.

They could care less what your gear does as long as it doesn't cause
them or other customers any problems.

Some larger ones may even be manned full time.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com