[amsat-bb] Re: a call for secondary payloads

[Andrew Glasbrenner]

Rocky Jones wrote:
> http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1003/27iridium/`
>
> these are all going on Musk Falcon. Robert WB5MZO Life member AMSAT ARRL
>
Interesting, but some deeper digging turns up some startling numbers. 
Iridium-NEXT's hosted payload specifications are 50kg, 30x40x70cm, and 
50W average. That's impressive. The orbit will be 780km, 86.4 degree 
inclination, or roughly the same neighborhood as AO-51, AO-27, etc.

The important parts are I get the feeling from their documents that they 
expect comms to go through their system, and here's the shocker:

http://www.iridium.com/Assets/Documents/library/brochures/iridium/21990_HostedPayloadBrochure_SP.pdf


The price of deploying a “standard” hosted
payload into space on Iridium NEXT
primarily consists of a hosting fee paid
to Iridium and the cost of the sensors. In
addition, there is a modest, non-recurring
engineering cost and annual data delivery
charges once the data delivery starts. The
hosting fee for a single hosted payload
slot on Iridium NEXT is expected to cost
less than $9 million, contributing to an
unprecedented low total price for deploying
such missions. The total price can be further
reduced through volume discounts if the
mission calls for a large number of hosted
payloads across the constellation.

9 million PER payload. That might be a deal for someone wanting to 
replace an entire mission or constellation, but thats about 20 AO-51 
satellites and launches to AMSAT, or P3E or Eagle or a GEO hosted 
payload at going rates.

Anyways, thanks for the heads up, and interesting reading if nothing else.

73, Drew KO4MA