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{ "url": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/", "mailinglist": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/", "message_id": "[email protected]", "message_id_hash": "TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7", "thread": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/thread/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/", "sender": { "address": "rwmcgwier (a) comcast.net", "mailman_id": null, "emails": null }, "sender_name": "Robert McGwier", "subject": "[eagle] New integration lab, new relationships", "date": "2006-11-09T15:13:28Z", "parent": null, "children": [], "votes": { "likes": 0, "dislikes": 0, "status": "neutral" }, "content": "This note is informational and not for publication. The official \nannouncement will come from Rick Hambly on behalf of AMSAT and be made \nin the form of a press release. Let me say that I consider these \nhappenings to be a serious beginning of the activities towards a real \nspacecraft. I want to apologize for my being a wee bit quiet in the \nlast few weeks but there have been nice things brewing.\n\nA few weeks ago, Bob Davis, KF4KSS, and I had a conversation about his \nfuture in business and his future with us. Bob was an AMSAT employee \nin the labs in Orlando during the integration of AO-40. Many credit Bob \nwith doing some of the best work done in the mechanical area during that \nprogram. Bob was a aerospace engineering student and AMSAT made a great \nmove hiring him. Dick Jansson, Lou McFadin, Jan King, Karl Meinzer, \nand more were/ are universally supportive of Bob and his abilities as a \nspacecraft mechanical engineer.\n\nAfter the AO-40 program \"went to bed\" and into orbit, the Orlando \nactivity wound down. Bob wound up at SpaceDev and was an important part \nof the Chipsat program. He eventually left SpaceDev as their fortunes \nchanged (which had nothing to do with the spectacularly successful \nChipsat) and became an employee of Swales, a well known aerospace firm \nin the D.C., Maryland,Va. area. Bob and his peers became successful and \nlanded a good support contract with Wallops-NASA. Eventually, they \ndecided to leave Swales and join the University and the Maryland Hawk \ncorportation and to become an important partner to the university, \nWallops, and now AMSAT.\n\nWhen it became clear to me the scope of their ambition, and many other \nfactors, but most importantly, having Bob Davis involved, I recommended \nto Rick that we consider this as our new facility.\n\nRick Hambly, Tom Clark, Jim Sanford, Bob Davis and I have been working \nwith the University of Maryland on the eastern shore and this spin off \nof the university called Maryland Hawk Corporation with the goal being \nto enter into a working relationship that we hope will last for years. \nMaryland Hawk operates the Hawk Institute for Space Sciences in \nPocomoke, Maryland. HISS has access to the spacecraft engineering \nfacilities at Hawk and at Wallops (including machine shop, thermal \nvacuum chamber, and shake/shock test apparatus). The University of \nMaryland branch affiliated with HISS is in Princess Anne. Md. They are \nboth within 1/2 hour of NASA's Wallops facility. We have decided that \nthis is a spectacular opportunity for AMSAT to do a win-win-win deal. \nThe deal is done on AMSAT's side. The AMSAT board of directors \nunanimously approved a memorandum of understanding with the University \nof Maryland and another with Maryland Hawk. Maryland Hawk will be our \nintegration and testing facility. We will have 6000 square feet of \nmachine shop and integration facility. The clean room from AO-40 will \nbecome the first clean room in the new facility. The employees of HISS \nwill be on our satellite building, testing, and integration team along \nwith lots of help from volunteers but we will definitely have a superb \ncore unit on site at all times. This will also allow us to maintain the \ncontrolled access which will be required (legally) for our operations.\n\nHawk is very ambitious and AMSAT is going to get ambitious with them. \nHISS is a not for profit, 501c3 organization (like AMSAT), affiliated \nwith UMES through the Hawk corporation. UMES is attempting to grow \ntheir involvement in providing excellent technical jobs in the area and \nto increase the content of their curriculum. AMSAT will assist HISS in \nworking with Cubesat, small sat, etc. of all types. The members of \nAMSAT that choose to work with HISS on their programs will be encouraged \nto do exactly that and with AMSAT's blessing. AMSAT types would be \nadjunct faculty at UMES and UMES will support us with local facilities \nand student involvement in our projects. HISS wants to become a player \nin all sorts of small satellite activities and AMSAT, in concert with \nthese two groups, wants to seriously enhance its educational profile.\n\nI am very excited about this opportunity for AMSAT. So is the board of \ndirectors and the Eagle Project manager all of whom have been \nterrifically supportive and actively involved. The board asked lots of \ntough questions, and were quite careful with AMSAT's interests here. On \na personal note, I REALLY like these people at UMES and Hawk. They are \n\"our kinds of folks\". They are aggressive, ambitious, and have a vision \nof where they want to go. I want us to go with them and they want to go \nwith us along the path we want to take our programs. We (unanimously) \nbelieve this is the right thing for us to do at this juncture.\n\nThe launch environment has been undergoing major shifts in the last few \nyears and major U.S. policy is about to be sprung on us. We believe \nthis will impact us very positively. We believe we are poised to take \nadvantage of this changing environment. With this new facility and the \nnew environment, expect us to move out aggressively in several areas and \nkeep your fingers crossed for results. We are working on a technical \nassistance agreement (a term of art in the ITAR/Import/Export regime) \nthat we will submit to AMSAT-DL, AMSAT-UK, etc. so we can again enter \ninto working relationships with them as well and to do it with the \nblessing of the U.S. government (which is now required).\n\nI thank each and every one of you for your spectacularly generous \ncontributions to AMSAT and we hope we are now poised to take maximum \nadvantage of these contributions. I have attached google earth map \npointers to the University, the HISS facility, and finally to the \n\"visitor center, launch viewing area\" at Wallops.\n\nPlease remember, you are not authorized to release this. We have an \nagreement with the university and Hawk about press releases and this is \nnot one of them! Thank you all for your patience.\n\n\nBob\nN4HY\n\n-- \nAMSAT Director and VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL,\nTAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR WG Chair\n\"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat.\nYou pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los\nAngeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly\nthe same way: you send signals here, they receive them there.\nThe only difference is that there is no cat.\" - Einstein\n\n", "attachments": [ { "email": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/", "counter": 2, "name": "UMES.kmz", "content_type": "application/vnd.google-earth.kmz", "encoding": null, "size": 651, "download": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/attachment/2/UMES.kmz" }, { "email": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/", "counter": 3, "name": "Pocomoke_HISS.kmz", "content_type": "application/vnd.google-earth.kmz", "encoding": null, "size": 617, "download": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/attachment/3/Pocomoke_HISS.kmz" }, { "email": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/", "counter": 4, "name": "NasaWallops.kmz", "content_type": "application/vnd.google-earth.kmz", "encoding": null, "size": 635, "download": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/TE7IXDIBIUMEC5ANBQQMXSCSZA5DZJC7/attachment/4/NasaWallops.kmz" } ] }