• Question: How did u get the satilite up in space because of the size of it ?

    Asked by to Andrei, Ekbal, Ruth on 26 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Andrei Luchici

      Andrei Luchici answered on 26 Jun 2014:

      Hi tmacd11,

      To get a satellite into orbit you have to use a rocket. It’s the same principle as sending people to space. You build your satellite on the ground and then attach it to a rocket which will take it out to space.

      Here’s a video with a satellite being launched into space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJ9Dtyiclw

    • Photo: Ekbal Hussain

      Ekbal Hussain answered on 26 Jun 2014:

      Howdy,

      Andrei is right, to get a satellite into space you need a very big rocket. A satellite can weight something like 1000 kilograms. So it takes a LOT of power to get them into space.

      A rocket launch is a really beautiful thing. There are various stages of launching a rocket into space. The first stage is a massive burn of huge booster rockets. These give the capsule containing the satellite enough energy to get it up above most of the Earth’s atmosphere. These then fall away back to Earth.

      After that, a second rocket is used to get the capsule to outer space and into orbit. The second rocket then also breaks off and falls to Earth.

      The capsule then deploys robotic arms to release the satellite and set it off into orbit.

      My supervisor recently went to see a satellite called Sentinel 1-a launch from mission control a few months ago. Here’s a video of the launch taken from a camera stuck to the capsule itself!

      Some key times to look out for:
      At 2:16 you can see the large booster rockets break off. It’s quite pretty!
      At 3:09 – You can see the second rocket break away.
      At 3:47 You can see the robots release the satellite from the capsule

      It’s all very clever!
      Ekbal

      P.s. my office mate is a rocket scientist. He loves this kind of thing 🙂

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