Capability for first satellite in orbit?
- Thread starter lounge60
- Start date
Cook
Banned
It is an interesting equation; the earlier you go, the smaller the satellite would need to be to be light enough for the rocket of the time to accelerate to orbit, but the larger and heavier it would have to be to have any actual function – the consequences of earlier, less developed electronics an methods of automation.
One POD that might have an impact is to change British laws in the 1930s with respect to private individuals fiddling around with rocket engines. The British Interplanetary Society had a lot of good thinkers, but despite their keen interest was not able to conduct much in the way of actual work on the subject. That won't be enough to get a small satellite launched on it's own, in my opinion, but in terms of pushing forward some of the early experimentation it might provide a specific impulse.
with no war in europe and the german leadership still in love with big tings that make booom thus letting von braun get his way, i'd say early 40s.
The biggest single problem might be control, getting it into the right orbit. Given the incredible inaccuracy of v2s in wwii, you probably have to wait for either initerial guidance gets better, or the rockets get powerful enough to launch a pilot.
There are useful things you can do with satellites that don't need to be in any particular orbit; research into the upper atmosphere, for instance (the satellite doesn't even need any instruments for that), like the Vanguards. You could certainly do it in the early '50s without really doing much; even the late '40s is possible by pushing. Anything more requires excessively rapid development of rocket technology, really.
Both the mercury battery and solar-panels(crucial parts for the Vanguard I) were developed to a level of efficiency only after WWII. So I'd say the first satellite would be at least heavier than 1.5kg(OTL vanguard I weight)... to me, launching a satellite that can at least prove that it was in stable orbit for a period of time seems a feat astounding by itself. How about a satellite equipped with AFC (alkaline fuel cell) battery and a radio transmitting unit that communicates the atmospheric temperature? That looks fine enough to me for a first satellite.
Not so crucial, actually. Well, to the transmitter parts...but the actual valuable stuff Vanguard I did (and continues to do!) involves optically tracking it to measure the density and behavior of the outer atmosphere. That doesn't take anything on board at all--all the work is done of the ground. You just need to fix the satellite's orbit after launch and take periodic measurements afterwards.
It would probably be heavier and bigger for purposes of practicality, but a first satellite barely has to do anything, "to prove it was in stable orbit" or not. Any competent ground observer will quickly notice that something very odd and new has shown up within weeks, if not days of the launch, and a relatively small bit of math (of the sort routinely used by astronomers to compute the trajectories of comets and asteroids) will show that it's in Earth orbit. Of course, it helps if you have Baker-Nunn cameras and Operation Moonwatch--but they aren't necessary. Just a simple metal sphere--Vanguard with no instruments or Sputnik I with no radio--is plenty to demonstrate the principle. And, as I mentioned, can do useful scientific work with no further modifications.
Again, there are lots of useful things that passive satellites can do (for a certain definition of "useful"). As I mentioned, help measure the properties of the upper atmosphere; serve as communications relays for radio signals (a la Echo I and II); or serve as navigational aids, literally artificial Moons (for celestial navigation). None of these require any on-board instruments and indeed require virtually no on-board equipment, certainly nothing beyond the capability of the early 1950s or late 1940s.
Well I was thinking of Britain launching it during the 1920s or 1930s.
Then it becomes a different story.