[amsat-bb] Re: a little perspective

On 8/3/11 8:21 PM, Jim Jerzycke wrote:

At least AO-40 had a usable life for some. This thing is just another squawk box in space, like all the "student" satellites that are using the Amateur Radio frequencies for a free downlink.

ARISSat is still a little more than that. It's a good engineering test for a new spacecraft bus that was primarily built by AMSAT volunteers and who can apply that design and experience for future spacecraft. There are a number of new amateur technologies on ARISSat-1, and aside from the transponder input they all seem to be working.