[amsat-bb] I want this. I want that. Here comes another FM LEO sat.

[Jerry Buxton]

On 7/22/2014 9:21 AM, Paul Stoetzer wrote:
> Off the top of my head:
>
> AO-51 - Battery failure (Problem fixed in Fox series - shorted
> batteries will be cut loose from the circuit and the satellite will
> operate when in the sun)
This is an original conops for Fox-1 that did not make it to reality.  
In fact this requirement was removed over a year ago because it could 
not be suitably implemented to fit in the space available on the PCB.  
You see, at that time new inhibit requirements that were received from 
the launch providers caused us to have to re-engineer the battery 
board.  Moving the battery fail feature to another board was not 
possible because we could not afford to be redesigning the whole 
satellite, moving things around from each board to another to find room, 
in the time left to delivery (at that point the launch had not yet 
slipped to 2015 and we were due to deliver in March 2014).  The choice 
had to be made to cut the battery fail protection from the battery board 
in order to incorporate the inhibits, to make the launch.
The removal of this feature was brought forth at the Symposium last 
year, but the tale lives on.  Yes, it was an outstanding feature but as 
has been pointed out in some of the other emails going on right now, 
there is a real limit to what we can fit in a 1U CubeSat and in the time 
and under the provisions allowed by our rideshare.
Don't think it didn't get cut without a fight! :-)

The Fox-1A Engineering Unit is sitting on the official AMSAT test table 
in my shack right now, having arrived FedEx this morning after some time 
"in the shop" for fixes to hardware that we found in the first round of 
EU testing and having a new IHU all installed.  I'm getting ready to 
load new software with the latest DSP and flight features.  Stay tuned...

Jerry Buxton, NØJY