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An amateur space telescope, I started it as a COVID lockdown hobby project. It’s like a much nerdier “build my own car” sort of project at this point. I’m tryin

An amateur space telescope, I started it as a COVID lockdown hobby project. It’s like a much nerdier “build my own car” sort of project at this point. I’m trying to get it ready for when reusable launch vehicles lower the cost of launching to orbit to a suitable level it won’t bankrupt me. Surprisingly the most difficult thing is communicating to the ground. Not batteries, not imaging, not structural engineering… communication! It’s an absolute nightmare of paperwork and massively expensive fees and hardware. Communication systems and related fees may end up being more than 50% of the entire cost, it used to be over 75% but I gave up and decided to just make the entire thing bigger and more expensive because of how ludicrous it seemed to build a $10k cubesat and spend $135k just to get a permit to communicate with it! It’s been a fascinating and rewarding endeavour but don’t get me started on how much I hate radio regulations and export control (ITAR) … I’ve had multiple business ideas along the way from all this learning but have done nothing about them because I quickly realised that I’m in the rare realm of needing a legal-expertise cofounder due to how insane these regulations are. I’ve honestly been told by some companies that telling me how much something costs to buy is both a trade secret requiring an NDA and that I’ll need to submit appropriate ITAR paperwork before they can even send me the NDA because if other people knew how much it cost that would be materially aiding efforts to reverse engineer such devices in circumvention of export controls… this is the insane world of aerospace engineering outside of academic projects and big defence subcontractors. Still working on it though… it’s not like I’m in a rush, launch costs won’t come down for a while, likely 5 years once a couple more fully reusable launchers are competing with SpaceX’s Starship. Plenty of time to find solutions to these kinds of problems, like how I have to use software defined radio to build my own GPS unit since all commercial GPS units have speed and altitude lock outs to prevent use in guided missiles and military jets.

O__________O 4y ago
Curious, what functions specifically fall under ITAR? For example, have you reviewed something like this page: https://research.mit.edu/integrity-and-compliance/export-control/information-documents/my-satellite-itar-or-ear https://research.mit.edu/integrity-and-compliance/export-con...
- techdragon 4y ago
  The largest issues I’ve had with ITAR are: 1: I’m building this myself as an amateur, not a university or company, this seems to instantly put everyone on high alert and I suspect I’m getting “ITAR” as an excellent stonewalling/excuse instead of just saying they don’t want to talk to me. 2: I’m working with an orbital imaging systems which could in theory be used as a very ineffective spy sat (the optics aren’t designed to look at the ground but it is a telescope) 3: I’m not in America, so I have to deal with the “international” part of ITAR. It’s not like I’m in an embargo country, I’m in Australia… but a lot of people want to minimise their ITAR exposure so they just don’t want to work with anyone outside the USA, they are effectively “outsourcing” the ITAR problem to the downstream customers that build systems using their components. Since they aren’t exporting they have a much simpler due diligence process, like just making sure they confirm the buyer is an American citizen. Overall it’s just been less of a complete dead end but more of a minefield of bullshit I have to dodge any time I’m forced to deal with American companies… dual use technology is ok to buy, until your using it for one of those special purposes, then it’s a mountain of paperwork.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    If the aperture is below 0.50m, it should be subject to US Department of Commerce’s Commerce Control List (CCL) of dual-use technologies governed by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) — not ITAR. How big is the aperture? Did something else qualify it as being under scope of ITAR? SOURCES: https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/satellite-export-controls-get-another-update-jwst-no-longer-under-itar/ https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/satellite-export-controls... https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/Download?urlId=10.1117%2F12.2535945 https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/Download?urlI... * (might try reaching out to author’s of paper above to see if they have any suggestions) Personally, I would not make to much of how people respond to you independently trying to complete paperwork. My guess is it’s more likely related to any non-consumer system that requires paperwork not wanting to deal with non-professionals and/or give legal advice. ____ Unrelated, do you have a breakdown of the SatComm expense by type product/vendor and/or utility fees/rates and expected utilization?

O__________O 4y ago

Curious, what functions specifically fall under ITAR? For example, have you reviewed something like this page: https://research.mit.edu/integrity-and-compliance/export-control/information-documents/my-satellite-itar-or-ear https://research.mit.edu/integrity-and-compliance/export-con...

techdragon 4y ago
The largest issues I’ve had with ITAR are: 1: I’m building this myself as an amateur, not a university or company, this seems to instantly put everyone on high alert and I suspect I’m getting “ITAR” as an excellent stonewalling/excuse instead of just saying they don’t want to talk to me. 2: I’m working with an orbital imaging systems which could in theory be used as a very ineffective spy sat (the optics aren’t designed to look at the ground but it is a telescope) 3: I’m not in America, so I have to deal with the “international” part of ITAR. It’s not like I’m in an embargo country, I’m in Australia… but a lot of people want to minimise their ITAR exposure so they just don’t want to work with anyone outside the USA, they are effectively “outsourcing” the ITAR problem to the downstream customers that build systems using their components. Since they aren’t exporting they have a much simpler due diligence process, like just making sure they confirm the buyer is an American citizen. Overall it’s just been less of a complete dead end but more of a minefield of bullshit I have to dodge any time I’m forced to deal with American companies… dual use technology is ok to buy, until your using it for one of those special purposes, then it’s a mountain of paperwork.
- O__________O 4y ago
  If the aperture is below 0.50m, it should be subject to US Department of Commerce’s Commerce Control List (CCL) of dual-use technologies governed by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) — not ITAR. How big is the aperture? Did something else qualify it as being under scope of ITAR? SOURCES: https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/satellite-export-controls-get-another-update-jwst-no-longer-under-itar/ https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/satellite-export-controls... https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/Download?urlId=10.1117%2F12.2535945 https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/Download?urlI... * (might try reaching out to author’s of paper above to see if they have any suggestions) Personally, I would not make to much of how people respond to you independently trying to complete paperwork. My guess is it’s more likely related to any non-consumer system that requires paperwork not wanting to deal with non-professionals and/or give legal advice. ____ Unrelated, do you have a breakdown of the SatComm expense by type product/vendor and/or utility fees/rates and expected utilization?