[amsat-bb] Re: High orbit satellites?

[Robert Bruninga]

Amen,

Just go to the biggest SmallSat conference on earth at the annual AIAA/USU
conference in Utah.  Unlike AMSAT, the registration is $600 each, and it
lasts 6 days and all 500 to 1000 attendees are fully into Small Cubesat
like missions.  And very expensive instruments. Every space related
Commercial and Governmnet entity is there.  A complete industry has grown
up to support this new spearhead of interest and you can buy a VHF/UHF
transceiver board for only $5000.  Or a small 4" solar panel for $10,000
or an attitude sensor suite for $8000 or an antenna for $3000 or a chassis
(cubesat) for $5000.  Or a complete 3U cubesat for only $250,000.

And everyone of these hundreds of cubesat missions ALL want a cheap ride
to space.  Dan is right, the days of free rides is long-long gone because
the demand for paying rides is so high.

Bob, WB4APR


-----Original Message-----
From: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On
Behalf Of Daniel Schultz
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 10:56 PM
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: High orbit satellites?

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


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