One issue that arose in earlier talks with commercial satellite providers was the fact that the Earth facing side of the satellite was covered with commercial antennas. There was scant little area left to place a significant sized Earth facing amateur radio antenna.
John WA4WDL
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lee McLamb" ku4os@cfl.rr.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 9:10 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Bill Ress - N6GHz - Board Candidate - OperatingSurvey
On Tuesday 22 July 2008 08:11:56 Andrew Glasbrenner wrote:
Some replies to Ed's comments:
The Intelsat should be much less expensive: 1-free ride 2-free power 3-free stabilization
Let me clarify this some. It is -not- a free ride. Intelsat will charge us for the loss of operational time for every kg of stationkeeping fuel they offload to accomondate our extra mass. There may be some recurring expenses as well.
Actually one of the things that makes an Intelsat rideshare more affordable now is that because the launch vehicles have gotten bigger, they typically would not have to offload any fuel due to our small mass increase. However, the increase in mass does increase their consumption rate of station keeping fuel. The resulting reduced operating life expectancy is certainly part of the equation that they will include in quoting prices.
73, Lee-KU4OS _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb