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Cube sats are probably the most accessible way to get involved, other than getting a job where you get paid to work with satellites. "most accessible" is relative, high altitude balloons check a lot of the same boxes and don't require a sponsor to put you on-orbit

I've seen tutorial and projects that consume data from satellites, but I imagine there's not much for the hobbyist outside that.

You mean like the website in the post?

https://nyan-sat.com/chapter4.html

I think the true hacker would learn by doing. Good luck!

Buy a rtlsdr and start by getting some images from weather satellites