[amsat-bb] Re: Rideshare missions to GTO, $800K for 3U Cubesat

I hope that Amsat can make Fox the highest quality, longest lived Cubesat ever built. But a Cubesat in high altitude orbit will be very disappointing to most hams, only the big-gun ham stations will ever be able to work it. We need a larger satellite with a larger power budget, high gain antennas and an attitude control system to aim those antennas at the Earth. We need to build and launch multiple satellites so that a single failure will not be so devastating to the user community.

Those of us who work in or near the space program are looking under every rock to find a flight opportunity to a high altitude orbit. Please don't sell your AO-40 gear just yet, I think that you will need it again someday.

Dan Schultz N8FGV