Hams are not poor, many of us are willing to spend thousands on the latest radio gear, and DX-peditions have raised substantial amounts of money to finance trips to remote islands so that contributors can get a rare QSL card. We have the financial means but are lacking the organization. We have to convince members that if they can spend $2000 on a new radio then they can also send a $2000 check to AMSAT if they want new satellites in orbit.
Some of our members are quite satisfied with low orbit FM satellites and think that keeping these in space is the top priority. Many others still remember the days of AO-10, AO-13 and AO-40 (when it was working). Many of those members became discouraged and left AMSAT when we failed to replace those satellites with new ones. We can keep the LEO sats in orbit for those who want them by offering our radio boards to universities and other groups who want to build CubeSats but don't know a lot about radio. To serve the long term interests of the amateur radio community we must set our sights on larger, more powerful and higher satellites, and we will probably have to pay for those launches because the era of free launches for satellites larger than a Cubesat is gone and not coming back. Fortunately the newly emerging private space industry offers launch options for much less money than the days when we got "free" launches from the government.
The short lifetime of Phase 3D is a valid point, it was intended to last much longer except for a simple and avoidable mistake. The trouble is that P3D was a one of a kind mission with no possibility of a follow up mission. Future AMSAT HEO programs must be ongoing programs in which the lessons learned from earlier satellites can feed into subsequent missions. AMSAT must also prove that we are capable of learning lessons from ours and other's failures and applying them to new satellites. AMSAT has to prove that it is capable and worthy of such support, because we are only as good as our last failure. The petty bickering that has occurred recently has to end so that we can present a professional appearance to outsiders.
I was working in the Hubble control center when the flawed mirror was discovered. Much has been written about why the conflicting optical tests were not followed up, but the project WAS behind schedule and over budget and Congress was looking at cancellation if it fell any further behind. Schedule and budget pressure are very real worries for NASA missions. I will simply point out that NASA repaired the flawed telescope within three years at minimal cost and the telescope has worked flawlessly for over 30 years now and is still going strong. That is a pretty successful failure. And NASA runs the CubeSat Launch Initiative and deploys many of them from the ISS, so it obviously does support CubeSats.
Dan Schultz N8FGV
------ Original Message ------ Received: Mon, 01 Feb 2021 07:08:27 AM EST From: Dimitrios Simitas va3dsz@gmail.com Subject: Re: [AMSAT-BB] Re: Cubesats
If AMSAT were to build another AO-40, it would take 9 years of current budget to finance it ($4-$4.5 million). And it's life of 4 years, would mean years between satellite activity. Cubesats are a compromise that allows them to launch one every year based on their budget. And during the last 5 years, this has given amateurs near continuous use of the Fox
series.
If the goal is to keep satellites in space at all times, CubeSats are the only feasible option under AMSAT's budget constraints. If the membership desires better, then collectively more donations need to be made. Can't ask for a Rolls Royce to drive you around then expect to pay Yellow Cab rates.
As for criticisms from NASA, they hold the record for the most costly satellite blunder, failing to properly verify the $4 billion Hubble before launch.