OW34: How to train your SMALLSAT

So. You want to train a smallsat

Congratulations, brave soul, because what you’re essentially adopting is the orbital equivalent of a teenage dragon: small, scrappy, powerful, unpredictable, and one sneeze away from burning your whole launch budget.

Smallsats, space’s unruly hatchlings, are any satellite that doesn’t outweigh your neighbor’s SUV. Their kingdom stretches from femtosats, those croutons with solar panels, to minisats that resemble flying washing machines with trust issues. The celebrity of the group is da CubeSat, built in ten-centimeter blocks. Think of them like dragon eggs: compact, delicate, and cursed with the potential to either change the world or explode unexpectedly.

Not as fiery as you’d imagine, the cost of raising your own sky-lizard is still not pocket change. A basic CubeSat kit can run you anywhere from tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand, and if you want one that actually does something useful, the price easily creeps into the millions. Launch fees are sold by the kilo, like overpriced cheese, and they only climb from there. Still, this is where the charm lies. Universities run bake sales, startups pitch them like blockchain for agriculture, and governments use them to cosplay a “democratized” space age.

They may be small, but when enough are trained and flying in formation, they can achieve a lot. Earth monitoring, crop tracking, broadband relays, and climate data all packed into tiny shoeboxes with angry solar wings. No, they don’t have the raw muscle of geostationary warhorses, but what they lack in scale, they make up for in swarm tactics. Where once a single satellite did the heavy lifting, now a hundred can offer better coverage, redundancy, and that ever-precious metric, revisit rate.

In Every Home

Which, naturally, leads to the question of why everyone doesn’t have one. Imagine ordering a family spy satellite from Amazon, Prime because you want it next day, and using it to livestream your roof tiles or check if the neighbor’s pool is actually warmer. Well, … smallsats are not plug-and-play, not unless you happen to have a clean room, a few aerospace engineers, and the stamina to navigate regulatory paperwork that could outlast most relationships. Launching an unregistered flying shoebox into orbit is frowned upon, to put it mildly.

Making one is harder than the enthusiasm suggests. Most hobbyists stop at the 3D-printed Death Star proto stage. Pros, on the other hand, are packing power systems, radios, and attitude control into boards smaller than a sandwich. They must design thermal control that keeps one side from melting in sunlight while the other doesn’t freeze solid in shadow, all while surviving an environment that makes no exceptions for mistakes. Ask any university team and they’ll admit: after years of development, half of their solar panels still refuse to deploy on command.

That’s the reality, and yet the tiny beasts are everywhere. Smallsats are multiplying like dragons during mating season. They are cheap, fast, useful, and above all, messy. They’re powering new industries and cluttering the sky while providing just enough optimism for endless conference panels on “democratizing access to orbit.”

The Golden Age

Right now, smallsats are enjoying their golden moment. Over 11,000 satellites currently buzz around Earth’s orbit, and by 2030 that number could more than double. Orbit is no longer a majestic realm of careful spacing and scientific solemnity, it’s a traffic jam. A collision away from gridlock. And yet, we love it.

Still, pretending it’s all upward trajectory would be foolish. Mega-constellations like Starlink and Kuiper are saturating low Earth orbit, turning it into a bumper car arena. There’s no real regulation, no meaningful coordination, and only a thin layer of hope keeping everything from cascading into disaster. One glitch, one miscalculation, and we’re looking at Kessler syndrome, a chain reaction of collisions that could trap humanity on Earth for a century. But more on that later.

Risk, as always, is just opportunity in a space helmet. Smallsats have become the investment darlings of the new orbital economy, fueling an industry now worth hundreds of billions annually. Forecasts keep inflating, and investors keep nodding, because no one wants to miss the next frontier gold rush. The trouble is, more smallsats and more launches also mean more junk. Space traffic management remains laughable, and the orbital cleanup crew still hasn’t arrived. With every additional constellation, we’re increasing the odds of something going wrong.

Still, you want one. Of course you do.

Who wouldn’t want to ride a dragon?

That’s where things get easier. If paperwork isn’t your passion and you’d rather think about payloads over permits, companies like Alén Space or ISISPACE will handle everything. They’ll build it, launch it, operate it, and let you play visionary while they do the work. If you’d rather build your own beast, companies like NanoAvionics and EnduroSat offer modular kits to help you avoid reinventing the wheel, or the power system.

And when it’s time to actually fly, Rocket Lab offers dedicated launches aboard its Electron rocket, perfect for 300 kilograms of ambition. PLD Space in Spain is working on its reusable Miura 5, aiming for a greener takeoff. Orbex in the UK, backed by ESA, is prepping Prime, its own microlaunch contender. Or you could hitch a ride with Exolaunch, the rideshare expert partnering with everyone from SpaceX to PSLV.

Smallsats are not just toys for rich kids with STEM degrees. So yes, train your dragon. Just don’t forget, every tiny beast you launch adds to the sky’s growing swarm.

The Throne Is Crowded and the Peasants Are Getting Noisy

This week in satellite communications felt like watching a Shakespearean drama where every character suddenly thinks they’re the lead. We’ve got auto manufacturers pretending they’re aerospace pioneers, regulators pretending they’re still in charge, and defense contractors nodding politely while quietly securing the only contracts that actually matter. Meanwhile, Mother Earth is being treated like the unwanted intern who keeps pointing out the whole place is on fire. It’s a miracle any of this still functions.

Geely Fires Cars Into the Sky, or Something Like That

Geely, China’s answer to “what if Elon Musk but with less subtlety,” decided it wasn’t enough to make cars. No, now they’re flinging satellites into orbit too. Eleven more of their shiny LEO toys launched on August 22, bringing their total to 41. Because apparently what drivers really need is centimeter-level satellite precision to locate the pothole that will bankrupt them.

The plan, if you can call it that with a straight face, is to integrate these satellites with Geely’s advanced driver-assistance systems. Because nothing says road safety like trusting the company that made your cupholder to also handle orbital infrastructure. By year’s end, they want 72 of these things spinning around the planet. That’s right, the future is here, and it’s sponsored by a car company that read “GPS” once and got way too excited.

Rockets Are Polluting the Sky, Scientists Shocked to Discover Water Is Wet

On August 22, a team of very serious scientists led by Professor Eloise Marais at UCL announced a discovery so groundbreaking it could almost be satire. Rocket launches are polluting the atmosphere. Yes, really. Turns out firing giant tubes of metal filled with explosives into the sky every week has consequences. Who could have guessed?

The number of launches has tripled since 2020, and emissions of soot, CO2, and chemicals like chlorine are punching holes in the ozone and giving the climate a metaphorical wedgie. Some rockets are even using substances so toxic they’d be banned from villain lairs in Bond movies. But sure, let’s keep pretending this is sustainable. Scientists are now calling for an international regulatory regime to do something about this, which will probably get the same enthusiastic response as a PowerPoint about proper recycling in a frat house.

Space Is Now a Battlefield Because of Course It Is

On August 18, the Associated Press reminded us that orbit is no longer just crowded with junk and dreams. Now it’s also a war zone. In what is either a terrifying escalation or a really bad plot from a Netflix miniseries, pro-Russian hackers hijacked a satellite in Ukraine and broadcast propaganda footage. Yes, apparently you can now add “beaming nationalistic montages into enemy skies” to your list of wartime tactics.

With over 12,000 satellites now doing laps around Earth like confused pigeons, the whole space security thing is looking about as airtight as a colander. The industry’s cybersecurity defenses are still in their awkward teenager phase, and some of these systems are running on code older than the interns working on them. But sure, let’s keep launching more. HAL 9000 would be proud.

Terrestrial Broadcasting Slowly Crawls Off the Satellite Lifeboat

Over at LTN, someone finally realized it’s not 2002 anymore. On August 20, they rolled out a beefed-up IP video distribution network to help broadcasters transition off satellite distribution. Because nothing says “we believe in space” like quietly abandoning it.

The system now offers broadcast-grade reliability, which is corporate speak for “it mostly works unless it doesn’t.” This is all part of the industry’s slow, awkward shuffle away from satellite TV as 5G eats the C-band alive and streaming services cackle from their throne of cord-cutting profits. It’s like watching an empire quietly sell off its castles because the barbarians already moved in and started a podcast.

The FCC Is Decluttering Orbit Like It’s Marie Kondo for Ground Stations

The U.S. FCC, in a rare moment of not being decades behind, announced on August 22 that it’s slashing paperwork for ground stations. Because apparently it took them until 2025 to figure out that regulatory molasses isn’t great for innovation.

They’re aiming to turn ground station licensing into something resembling a modern process instead of a Kafkaesque endurance test. This is all meant to spur something called Ground Station-as-a-Service, which sounds fancy but mostly means “we finally realized sharing is a thing.” Of course, whether this actually results in more access or just more buzzwords remains to be seen.

Starlink Keeps Launching Satellites Because the Sky Is Apparently Infinite

On August 22, SpaceX launched another 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg, which at this point feels less like a business operation and more like a compulsion. That brings them to over 1,800 satellites launched in 2025 alone, a figure that should terrify both astronomers and anyone who likes seeing the actual stars.

This is what happens when you give a billionaire a rocket company and not enough hobbies. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Kyivstar ran its first test of Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell capability on August 12. Soon, you’ll be able to lose signal during a breakup call from orbit instead of just in a tunnel.

The Sky Is Full, the Earth Is Mad, and No One’s in Charge

Let’s call it what it is. The industry is sprinting into a wall with open arms. Satellite numbers are exploding, regulatory bodies are doing interpretive dance instead of policy, and security is held together with hopes, dreams, and unpatched software. Even as Starlink floods LEO and Geely’s cars start whispering to space, no one seems concerned that we’re casually wrecking the atmosphere or turning orbit into a weaponized junkyard.

Environmental regulation is a distant fever dream. Rocket emissions are already eroding the ozone like a medieval plague, but don’t worry, there’s a white paper about it somewhere. And then there’s security. Satellites are now targets, tools, and vulnerabilities all at once. The fact that hackers are playing space puppet master should probably keep people up at night, but most execs are too busy pitching their next constellation to notice.

The Glorious Future: One Ping Away from Oblivion

What’s coming next is equal parts brilliant and dumbfounding. We’ll have satellite internet everywhere, even in places where people don’t have running water. Your car will be connected to space. Your fridge might be too. But your government will still be debating what to do about spectrum allocation while foreign powers use orbit to wage psychological warfare. It’s like watching a fireworks show while the foundation of your house quietly collapses.

Still, you have to admire the commitment. The industry is nothing if not enthusiastic. Even if it burns out the sky, triggers geopolitical crises, and breaks the internet, it’ll do so with confidence. And maybe, just maybe, someone will finally realize that before we colonize the stars, we should probably figure out how to survive the launch.