[amsat-bb] Re: High orbit satellites?

[Daniel Schultz]

In the 1980's era of AO-10 and AO-13, AMSAT was just about the only outfit
interested in launching small satellites, there was no commercial market for
secondary launches, and we got them free or very cheap. In today's world,
every university on Earth is building a Cubesat and commercial and government
organizations are developing real missions around Cubesats. If they gave AMSAT
a free launch today, they would have to give free launches to everybody. That
is the main problem that we have today. 

The NASA Cubesat launch initiative is accepting applications for up to a 6U
Cubesat with proposals due in November, it MIGHT be possible to get a launch
to GTO through this program (or it might not be). Can AMSAT design a high
altitude satellite in a 6U Cubesat frame with sufficient solar power
generation and antenna gain to provide a viable ham radio mission in HEO? It
is worth further study over the next two months.

Dan Schultz N8FGV


>Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 23:58:57 -0700
>From: Peter Klein <pklein at threshinc.com>
>To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
>Subject: [amsat-bb] High orbit satellites?
>Message-ID: <521EF131.6080500 at threshinc.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

>What are the chances that there will be another high-orbit satellite 
>like AO-10 and AO-13?  Does AMSAT have any plans in that direction since 
>the demise of AO-40?  My main satellite interest is live communication 
>with faraway places, and I really miss those Molnya birds.

>--Peter, KD7MW