Hi All,
You guys are making me all teary-eyed! I loved that bird, especially for all the "challenges" it presented.
Ughh.. this really hit's me hard and I'm getting very sentimental reading all email's to this topic. But it gives me also
The launch campaign in french Guiana, were I was staying in Kourou for more than quarter of the year, and the re-birth of AO-40 on Christmas were the most exciting days in my life.
I haven't made many contacts, I was more among the "listeners" and enjoyed the fun.
It's sometimes very frustrating to me that 10 years after the launch of AO-40 we still haven't got P3-E into orbit. We have been going to many up's and down's during this time, but we are not giving up. There are new challenges we are working on presently and some of them give us a good hope of success. Indeed and I'm sorry for that, It has been very quiet about the progress of P3-E in the last year. While most mechanical work is done, there was also progress on the electronics, mostly the IHU. However, one of the biggest challenges is indeed funding and a launch we can afford. That's where we a concentrating most of our efforts and time at the moment
Indeed, we need the support of the community. There will only a P3-E, if we all really want it..
If you want to support P3-E, than please visit http://www.p3e-satellite.org/?lang=en_EN and make a direct donation to the project - THANKS!
73s Peter, DB2OS
Peter Gülzow President AMSAT-DL