[amsat-bb] Some benefits of open source sats that I envision

[John Brier]

I am excited to hear about the possibility of ITAR not restricting
open source satellite work.

You can see a similar excitement in how AMSAT talks about the Linear
Transponder Module and the possibility of seeing that module in
multiple unique university satellites.

Just imagine if instead of having to hand hold every university who
was interested in the AMSAT LTM in their efforts to use the module, if
instead its design was published online for free for anyone to use.

Imagine people launching sats using it you didn't even know were going
to be launched. Imagine they found issues or ways to improve it, and
just submitted design changes back to you for free. Not to mention you
get to see and use your technology in additional sats you didn't have
the funds to build or launch.

It's hard to know what went wrong with AO-95, but imagine if the Fox
designs were open source and others were launching Fox sats and made
small changes to the antenna design, or other suspect components, to
see if it avoided that issue. You could perhaps figure out what caused
the issue over time, not to mention, have a lot more sats to operate.

I'm also envisioning AMSAT-NA working with all the other AMSAT groups
around the world, and many different universities around the world, on
the best sat designs for different categories. You could build the
most dependable possible FM sats, linear sats, and more complex sats
like the GOLF project describes.

If it is at all possible to get around ITAR so sats can be developed
the open source way, I think it would be wildly beneficial.

73, John Brier KG4AKV