AMSAT - 'We're Going Back To Space'

During the board meeting held Oct. 8 in conjunction with the Annual Space Symposium and 40th Anniversary Celebration, the AMSAT Board of Directors adopted the Engineering Task Force recommendation that low-cost launch options be pursued immediately. The AMSAT engineering team will develop a 1U CubeSat design effective immediately. Tony Monteiro, AA2TX, Vice-President of Engineering said, "We are recommending an approach that gets AMSAT back up in space with new satellites by leveraging the skills and technology we have today."

The new AMSAT CubeSat's initial capability is planned to add to the popular low-earth orbit FM transponder fleet allowing hams to continue to use their existing handheld and portable antenna systems. This also continues the accessible entry path for new satellite operators to get started. The existing FM satellites are starting to show their age.

The flight version of ARISSat-1 has been developed to be adaptable into the CubeSat model. This will allow a modular approach to mission design using proven subsystems and components. The ARISSat-1 mission planned in 2010 will be the initial flight test of AMSAT's modular satellite.

Here are some of the highlights ...

• AMSAT will develop comparable AO-51 level of performance packaged into a 1U CubeSat. This includes a V-U transponder, V telemetry, U command receiver, IHU, power control. This can be done with our modular design.
• This will be a U/V FM Transponder, not done before in a 1U CubeSat, which can be worked with a HT and a simple antenna. CubeSat power limitations are planned to be addressed through research and development of deployable solar-cells.
• AMSAT will make our open-design satellite modules and technology available for other satellite teams to build into their missions.
• This new approach will provide a reliable radio link for future CubeSats allowing university teams to concentrate on their scientific objectives.
• The modular nature of the AMSAT CubeSat system will allow add-on missions utilizing several different types of modulation and bandwidth. These can be pursued with future low-cost CubeSat launch opportunities.

You can find more news from the board meeting and the Space Symposium at www.amsat.org.

 

Awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing more news on this in the future.

 

Correction

I see that I can't edit this message. I used to be able to.

In the bullet points, please note that the first item SHOULD read:

"This includes a U-V transponder,"

As you see in the next line, a Mode B (UHF up/VHF down) transponder has not been done before in a 1U Cube Sat.

73 to all,

Tim - N3TL

 

OSCAR 10 and 13

Why cant we have satellites like OSCAR 10 or 13 anymore?
Why do we need equipment that is only made for some hi tech satellites?
What I'm trying to say, is that if you already have the equipment, that is 2m and 70cm ssb radios, why not build satellites for them again?
Everybody who remember how fun it was, would probably agree!
With todays modern electronic, would it be so very difficult to make them "bulletproof" or expensive?
If we can build those cubesats, good old technology would work just as good!

just my 2cents...

Lars

 

The answer is quite simple.

The cost just to launch that kind of satellite into that kind of orbit today is upwards of ten million of dollars...a figure that is now well beyond the ability of a non-profit, non-philanthropic, membership-dependent Amateur Radio-based organization like AMSAT to raise. Indeed, the days of "free" (or near "free") launches for AMSAT satellites are long since over.

Now, if you (or someone you know) has that kind of cash they'd like to donate to the cause, I'm sure the AMSAT folks would like to hear from you!

Even a satellite the size of AO-51 (about 9 inches square and weighing in at about 20 or so pounds) costs upwards of $500K to launch these days. And that's just to launch it into a so-called LEO ("Low Earth Orbit")! I invite you to compare that figure with the cost to launch AMSAT's AO-51 satellite just a few years ago. Back then, launches to LEO could be had for "only" a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

Those days, too, are now long gone.

Again, it's largely a matter of cost.

A linear transponder (for SSB) and its associated complexity and increased power requirements translates directly into the need for a much larger satellite (and hence an much larger launch "upmass") than a cubesat.

And increased launch mass translates directly into higher launch costs...costs that often rise exponentially as the satellite's mass and the altitude of the orbit increases. In light of today's staggering launch costs just to launch a cubesat to LEO...AMSAT simply can no longer afford to build and launch "big" satellites into high orbits like AO-10 and AO-13...at least not the way they have done so in the past.

As I have said, unfortunately, using "good old technology" to build and launch satellites to high earth orbit as in years past is no longer an affordable option for a non-profit group like AMSAT.

Right now, there are simply too many commercial and military satellites chasing too few launch opportunities. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. Increasing launch backlogs and a shrinking supply of launch opportunities has driven launch costs right through the ceiling.

Now, this is not to say that the situation couldn't change in the future. Indeed, AMSAT is always looking for innovative (spelled "cheap") ways to launch its hardware and software to orbit. For example, they are always looking for so-called "rideshare" opportunities with other satellite builders and/or providers and, indeed, will continue to do so.

But, unless and until such an (affordable) rideshare opportunity comes along, small satellites of the "cubesat" variety will be AMSAT's principle "bill of fare"...at least for the foreseeable future.

...which, unfortunately, is no longer nearly enough to build and launch a satellite these days!

73,

Keith
KB1SF / VA3KSF

 

Right, or very long delayed while gathering funds. This cubesat is a pot boiler, and I think a good decision.

Launch opportunities are going to get even rarer after the space shuttle is retired next year. Probably 5 years plus till the replacement rocket is flying.

Bill

 

Not quite.

AMSAT's "dream" has always been to provide reliable, world-wide satellite coverage. Indeed, a portion of their mission statement (taken from the AMSAT web site) reflects that thought:

"Our Vision is to deploy satellite systems with the goal of providing wide area and continuous coverage. AMSAT will continue active participation in human space missions and support a stream of LEO satellites developed in cooperation with the educational community and other amateur satellite groups."

It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that "continuous, wide area coverage" can be accomplished in any number of innovative ways besides building and launching AMSAT-owned, "full up" satellites (like P3-D and Eagle) into HEO.

For example, using a constellation of Low Earth Orbiting satellites, "continuous coverage" might be achieved by interconnecting those satellites either via inter-satellite links or via multiple uplinks and downlinks connected to the Earth-based Internet. Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, is already doing something very similar to this with his APRS PC-Sats. And the commercial world already does this with such pay-for-use systems called Irridium and Globalstar.

However, as the hardware and software technology required to replicate those commercial systems shrinks, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a constellation of far cheaper cubesats flying in a medium-altitude orbit might be able to do largely the same thing...and for only a fraction of the construction and launch costs now associated with building and launching one or more full-up HEOs (or GeoSats).

What's more, throughout its 40 year history, AMSAT has been faced with seemingly similar "show stopping" launch challenges. And in each and every case, AMSAT's experimenters found a way to work around them.

Indeed, during the late 1980s, when, once again, too many satellites were chasing too few launches, AMSAT helped the European Space Agency invent a whole new way to launch secondary payloads. They came up with launch platform in the shape of a ring that fit around the base of the Ariane 4 launch vehicle's upper stage called the Ariane Structure for Auxiliary Payloads (ASAP).

AMSAT then went on to design, build and fly a whole new concept of modular satellites called the "Microsats" using the new ASAP structure. As a result, they paid just a fraction of the launch costs they would have otherwise had to pay to launch a much larger satellite. They launched four of these Microsats on a single Ariane rocket in 1990. To date, there have been a goodly number of others just like them launched, including AMSAT's own AO-51.

So, while the single-satellite, HEO concept called "Eagle" may appear to have been put "on the shelf" for the foreseeable future, the idea of using other far less costly, but yet highly innovative ways to provide hams with "continuous, wide area satellite coverage" is still very much alive within the organization.

73,

Keith
KB1SF / VA3KSF

 

linear or nothing

Hats off to SM7FYW, AMSAT should take a note from him and the thousand of hams that want a transponder that isn't made for a "single" repeater style QSO. Bring back RS10 a great little bird, made in Russia !

If its too expensive to launch linear transponder (for SSB/cw) then they (AMSAT) should close up shop and go home.

 

Me too.

I think the multiple cubesat approach is "doable" not only technically, but fiscally. This becomes especially attractive if AMSAT can get some universities involved by helping to mentor their students in building and launching their university satellites. In return, AMSAT might get them to include an amateur radio payload and carry it along for the ride. This "dual use" approach has been successfully used in the past with several of the Surrey satellites (UO-14, UO-22 and KO-25) as well as with AO-27.

Indeed...a GEOsat...flying at 22K miles over the Equator....or an HEO Eagle or P3E...which might only come around couple of times a day... poses a huge access problem for some people in the far north of the US and/or to those living mountainous (or "leafy") terrain. Their "window of opportunity" to hit a GEOsat or an HEO like Eagle is often greatly reduced.

What's more, having just one (or the other) of these kinds of HEO satellites in orbit would hardly provide "continuous coverage". For example, it takes a minimum of three GEOsats in high orbit to provide worldwide coverage.

I doubt seriously whether you'd be able to work either of thsse "high fliers" directly with an "HT and a duck"...not with current technolgoy at least.

73,

Keith
KB1SF / VA3KSF

 

I normally don't respond to posts that drip with negativity, but I'm going to try. We are working on more than one rideshare opportunity to fly linear transponders on LEO spacecraft in the next 2 years. The one that is most likely to fly is a Mode U/V transponder that may be upwards of 2-3 watts. We need to raise close to 100k dollars to support this mission BEFORE we launch it.

Will your call be in the list of donors? If there are "thousands" of hams that want a linear transponder, why do they not join AMSAT and vote for what they want with dollars?

By the way, RS-10/11 and RS-12/13 were not "little" birds. They we packages attached to very large Russian navigation and mapping satellites, similar to what we are working on now.

73, Drew KO4MA

 

I'll echo KO4MA's question posed to another gent on this thread:

Are YOU a current, financially sustaining member of AMSAT? Are you now willing to generously underwrite the $10 million (or so) that it will now take to build and launch a satellite such as Eagle out of YOUR pocket?

Unless and until a whole lot more people are ready and willing to do both (or AMSAT can secure an affordable (spelled "cheap") rideshare launch opportunity to HEO with another satellite provider) then "shooting up little cubes" is about all that AMSAT can afford to do right now.

However, to their credit, and as KO4MA noted, they are continuing to actively investigate a number of other innovate ways to get AMSAT back into space. And I think we need to encourage them to continue with those investigations.

In the meantime, the rest of us need to realize that access to space is no longer a cheap commodity that can be freely given away. Or, to put it another way, the fiscal and regulatory world in which AMSAT operates has significantly and fundamentally changed since OSCAR 1 was launched back in 1961. In that sense (and in many ways) AMSAT has now become a victim of its own success.

Increasingly today, as one of the characters in the movie "The Right Stuff" once quipped, its "No bucks...no Buck Rodgers".

73,

Keith
KB1SF / VA3KSF

 

10 and 13, no but maybe like 7

Thanks for the answer
I was not complaining, just wondering why, and got a good answer.
But what I ment, was that for the satellites them selfs, if they are built very simple, low power, and so forth, couldn't they be about the same size as those cubesats?
Now I'm probably in hot water, but this is still just a question, since having a cw/ssb passband would allow many stations to work at the same time, even if its a low orbit, like OSCAR 7, wich was a lot of fun
Launching cost, I do see as the problem today, but like I say, small very fun to operate, and while we wait for "the big one" why not?
I do wish, that I had loads of money, so I could help, but no, that I dont have, but I still have my old FT 847 "earth station" as it was called.

Lars

 

A lot of it has to do with the laws of physics and power limitations.

Linear transponders require a great deal more power than FM transponders (or a simple beacon) to operate. The need for more power means bigger solar panels and larger batteries are then needed to generate that power, all of which translates directly into a larger launch mass. That higher mass means more cost to launch it into orbit.

And, as I said, launching such a mass just to LEO (let alone to HEO!) is now becoming all but cost prohibitive without a lot of outside "help" for non-profit, non-commercial, member-supported organizations like AMSAT.

You might say that the laws of economics have now caught up with the laws of physics as major factors in deciding what AMSAT does (or doesn't do) going forward.

The CW/SSB linear transponder on AO-7 is still up there for all of us to use (albeit intermittently) as are the linear transponders aboard FO-29 and VO-52. Unfortunately, people who regularly use these satellites often report the transponders on these satellites are now all but empty on most North American passes.

Indeed, because satellites have a finite lifetime, if we REALLY want our experimenters to build and fly yet more linear transponders on future satellites, it seems to me we might want to start making better use of those we already have on orbit before we go demanding "more".

You are not alone. Most of us are in the exact same financial boat!

But we CAN still send a strong message to our experimenters that we very much appreciate their efforts on our behalf.

The best way to do that is by joining and financially supporting AMSAT, contributing as much as we can afford to AMSAT's fund raising campaigns for future satellites, and then using what our AMSAT experimenters have already put up there for us to enjoy to a far greater extent than what we are collectively doing now.

73,

Keith
KB1SF/ VA3KSF