unisat

Regulatory and Licensing Guide

Audience: teams who intend to fly UniSat on real hardware, not just submit the software as a competition deliverable.

Software on its own needs no licence. The moment you emit RF energy or attempt an orbital launch, regulators enter the picture. This guide maps the pieces you will actually hit; it is not legal advice.

Decision tree

Do you transmit RF from a ground station or payload?
├── No  → no radio licence required, skip to §5 (launch).
└── Yes → §1 (amateur) → §2 (IARU coordination) → §3 (national).

Do you launch the object?
├── No  (simulation only, CanSat indoors)
│     → only §4 (export control) if publishing to international teams.
└── Yes
    ├── Sub-orbital (rocket ≤ 100 km)   → §5.A
    ├── High-altitude balloon            → §5.B
    └── Orbital                          → §5.C  (serious paperwork)

1. Amateur radio licence

UniSat’s UHF link at 437 MHz lives inside the amateur-satellite band — free to use, but only by licensed operators. The path to a callsign is the same wherever you are:

  1. Pick the national amateur-radio authority:
    • US: FCC — Technician / General / Extra exams. 35 USD.
    • UK: Ofcom — Foundation / Intermediate / Full.
    • RU: Roskomnadzor / SRR — categories 1-4.
    • DE: BNetzA — Klasse A / E.
    • EU general: CEPT T/R 61-01 / 61-02 for cross-border recognition.
  2. Pass the Technician-class (or equivalent) exam — basic RF, operating rules, safety. ~2 weeks of study for a motivated student.
  3. Receive a callsign (the UN8SAT-1 example throughout UniSat docs is illustrative; replace it with your real callsign before first transmission).

Budget: 30–70 USD, 2-6 weeks wall time.

2. IARU frequency coordination

For any satellite using the amateur-satellite service, IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) runs the global frequency coordination to prevent two sats from stepping on each other.

  1. Fill in the online form at https://www.amsat.org/frequency-coordination/.
  2. Supply: mission description, orbit, launch date, uplink and downlink frequencies, modulation, TX power, callsign.
  3. Lead time: 3 months minimum before launch; coordinators like it earlier. Fee: free.
  4. IARU assigns (or confirms) your frequency, typically within the 435.000 – 438.000 MHz amateur sub-band.

Gatekeeper for: ITU filings, launch-provider acceptance, CSLI / RSpace, orbital insurance. Skipping IARU is a red flag to every launch broker.

3. National radio regulator

Your country’s telecom regulator signs off on the satellite as a radio station:

Expect paperwork: radio diagram, emission masks, EIRP calculations, launch schedule. Provide the link-budget and threat-model docs already in this repo — they cover most of what regulators want.

4. Export control

Space-related software can be dual-use. Before publishing or collaborating across borders:

If your team has members from multiple jurisdictions, do a one-page legal check before release. The MIT→Apache 2.0 licence migration already made in v1.2.0 does not change export control status.

5. Launch-specific filings

5.A Sub-orbital rocket / CanSat dropped from a balloon

5.B High-altitude balloon

5.C Orbital CubeSat (the real deal)

  1. Launch provider contract — commercial (SpaceX Rideshare, NanoRacks, Exolaunch) or government (NASA CSLI). CSLI is free for US educational teams but selective.
  2. ITU filing — the national spectrum regulator files with ITU on your behalf (API stage, C/D coordination, notification). 12-18 months lead time.
  3. IARU coordination (§2) — feeds ITU.
  4. National space-agency licence — Space Act Title 51 in the US, Russian Space Act Chapter 2, German Space Activities Act, etc. Demonstrates liability insurance (typically 60 M USD TPL) and de-orbit plan under 25 years.
  5. Deployment safety review — launch provider’s P-POD test plan, random vibration profile, thermal-vacuum qualification records. UniSat’s docs/testing/hil_test_plan.md and mass budget feed into this review.
  6. De-orbit plan — most authorities require < 25 years post-mission. Our 550 km SSO template decays in ~5 years naturally (see docs/budgets/orbit_analysis.md).

Total wall time: 18-36 months from first regulator contact to launch vehicle handover for a typical university CubeSat.

6. What UniSat already provides for regulators

Reviewer asks for… UniSat doc
Emission description docs/design/communication_protocol.md + docs/hardware/CC1125_configuration.md
Link budget docs/budgets/link_budget.md
Power budget docs/budgets/power_budget.md
Mass budget docs/budgets/mass_budget.md
Orbit / de-orbit docs/budgets/orbit_analysis.md
Thermal margins docs/budgets/thermal_analysis.md
FDIR / safe-mode behaviour docs/reliability/fdir.md
Command authentication docs/security/ax25_threat_model.md
Software requirements docs/requirements/SRS.md + traceability.csv
Testing evidence docs/testing/hil_test_plan.md

You still supply the physical artefacts — antenna pattern, launch environment tests, operations centre procedures — but the software story is already assembled.

7. Shortcuts for students

If you only need to run a competition, you typically do not need anything in §§2-5. Competition organizers run the range under an umbrella licence. Check the specific rulebook:

In those contexts, treat this document as background knowledge useful for the “how would you deploy for real” question during the defence.

This document is informational, not legal advice. Regulations change. Contact your national regulator before you transmit.

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