[amsat-bb] AMSAT NextGen Program Progress

[Alex, N3SQ]

Just to give everyone a little update on how the AMSAT NextGen Program 
is doing @ Binghamton University . . .

(a) CONTROL & EXPERIMENT SYSTEMS
- The Systems Engineering students are doing well analyzing the ARISSat 
documentation and will be scheduling meetings with the primary AMSAT 
engineering contact to discuss documentation questions.

- Identified Design Changes Needing to Occur for NextGen:
* The Control/Safety Timer needs to be adapted to conform with the 
CubeSat deployment switch standard
* Consolidation of Camera functionality into a separate camera payload 
board (functionality is currently spread across a number of boards in 
the stack)


(b) RF SYSTEMS
- The Systems Engineering students are doing well analyzing the ARISSat 
documentation and will be scheduling meetings with the primary AMSAT 
engineering contact to discuss documentation questions.

- Identified Design Changes Needing to Occur for NextGen:
* Antenna design choice - single dual-band vs dual mono-band
*  New RF container design needed


(c) POWER & STRUCTURE SYSTEMS
- The Systems Engineering students are doing well analyzing the ARISSat 
documentation and will be scheduling meetings with the primary AMSAT 
engineering contact to discuss documentation questions.
- The Hardware Engineering students have been busy creating a 
preliminary design for solar panel deployment and use of supercapacitors 
to replace the battery. A Preliminary Design Review is being scheduled 
in mid-November with the AMSAT Engineering Team.

- Identified Design Changes Needing to Occur for NextGen:
* Replace Battery with modular stacks of Supercapacitors in parallel to 
the Solar Panels
* Shrink ICB (Interconnect Board) to fit within CubeSat frame
* Reduce PSU footprint by moving camera power function to a Camera 
Payload Board (CPB)
* Slight PSU voltage supply design change
* Remove test/program load functionality from ICB to external test board 
(XTB) via standard CubeSat & PPOD maintenance ports (per CubeSat spec.)


We are still on-target to have an engineering model ready for the AMSAT 
table at the 2010 Dayton Hamvention with readiness for launch later in 2010.


Alex Harvilchuck, N3NP
NextGen Program Manager