Question: how do you build satterlites?

Jessica Housden answered on 17 Jun 2010:

First, you think about waht the satellite will do; what science – how many instruments, what sort of orbit it should be in (there are lots of possibilities).

Then, you start designing it; how big will it be, what sort of rocket launch does it need, how much propellant and how much power does it need?

Next, you actually start to do the detailed design and working out what each bit is made from. Most satellites are made of a aluminium shaped into a honeycomb pattern. This is very light but also very strong (you put a skin of aluminium on the top and bottom of it). Then you work out how to fit it all together – do lots of modelling to see if it will survive the rocket launch. Other things that have to be designed are the thermal properties – Space has no atmosphere, so things get very hot or cold depending on if they are in the sunlight. All the electronics want to work at room temperature.

Then, we start actually building it and putting it together. Often we make two spacecraft – one is for testing and one the real version. tesing can take quite a while – one thing we do is to put the whole satellite on a big vobration table and shake it to check it survives the launch.

Finally, we transport it to the launch site, turn it all on and then watch it go…

If you google jessica housden bbc learning you might find a clip that shows you a bit more of what I’ve been talking about.