Sending a small satellite into space is not cheap, though rocket companies and “hitchhikers” believe ride-share programs may be the answer in tight budget times.

For aerospace companies, universities, researchers and even NASA, ride-sharing on rockets with hefty primary payloads offers an affordable alternative for satellites that may weigh up to 440 pounds.

For some rocket companies, it’s a potential source of business, and for others, it’s already happening.

Sierra Nevada designs and builds small satellites that weigh 110 to 2,200 pounds at its Littleton facility.

“Some of them may require their own launch vehicles, but we would like to take advantage of ride-share opportunities that are out there,” said John Roth, Sierra Nevada’s vice president of business development.

In December, Sierra Nevada will launch the first of 18 330- pound communications satellites it is building for Orbcomm of New Jersey. The launch will be as a secondary payload on Space Exploration Technologies’ Falcon 9 rocket.

On Friday, several tiny satellites called CubeSats built by college students will go up on a Delta II rocket provided by Centennial-based United Launch Alliance, thanks to a NASA ride-share program that curtails the launch cost for educational groups.

The main payload will be the NPOESS Preparatory Project weather satellite — a collaboration among NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense. The spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies of Boulder.

The Colorado Space Grant Consortium — a statewide organization that provides hands-on opportunities for colleges and universities — previously had to hunt when it had a student payload that needed to go up.

The launch cost, at $30,000 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) was prohibitive. The NASA ride- sharing program, said consortium director Chris Koehler, “means I haven’t had to make cold calls for a launch vehicle for a while.”

ULA has looked at ride-sharing options since the company formed in 2006. But there have been obstacles.

The biggest hurdle, said George Sowers, ULA’s vice president of business development, is getting unrelated entities to go to the same place.

“You have to go where the main guy wants to go,” he said.

Payloads launched under the same banner — such as two or more NASA-sponsored satellites — are easier to coordinate since it can be difficult to ensure that the primary payload and the secondary one are delivered on time so the launch isn’t delayed.

“From a customer standpoint, it’s inexpensive,” perhaps $2 million for a lift to low- Earth orbit instead of $100 million for the whole rocket, Sowers said.

“A lot of people would like to see it grow,” Sowers said. “We had the idea that if we can get the right business model and the right capabilities, it could be a nice side business for us.”

Gerry Murphy, chief technology officer for Golden-based Design Net Engineering, predicts the economics will have government and commercial customers going into space together in the next few years.

With large rockets, “frequently there is a lot of margin,” said Murphy, whose company builds avionics and ride- sharing rocket adaptors. It makes sense, he said, to use excess capacity to test a technology “since you’ve got to fly to find out if it works and you don’t want to pay millions for something that didn’t work.”

For a small technology company, “a full-on launch is quite a bit out of reach,” said Mike Tupper, executive vice president of Lafayette-based Composite Technology Development.

Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com