The amateur satellite community could certainly have done something with the 6,951 km x 180 km x 29.0 degrees parking orbit that the upper stage and Tesla ended up in prior to solar orbit injection. Well hams could make use of it, it's a useless orbit for any serious commercial or government application these days. The bottom line is that SpaceX was never going to carry anyone's payload on this mission, so it's a purely academic discussion.
The next Falcon Heavy launch, the STP-2 mission to qualify the rocket for Air Force launches, will carry a few amateur cubesats to LEO as part of the mission, including USNA's PSAT-2 (assuming the situation Bob Bruninga discussed in yesterday's AMSAT-BB post is resolved).
73,
Paul, N8HM
On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 2:04 PM, Greg D [email protected] wrote:
In hindsight, sure, it could have been an interesting launch to be part of (ignoring for the moment JoAnne's notes about ITAR, et al). The car is now heading towards the Asteroid Belt, with Sir Isaac Newton in a space suit sitting in the driver's seat, and the passenger's seat unoccupied. But that wasn't the most likely outcome. Elon himself said he had visions of the whole thing blowing up on the pad, with one of the Roadster's wheels bouncing down the road, and its "T" hood emblem implanted in the concrete.
How much risk is AMSAT-DL willing to take in launching the P3E satellite? It's of little use to the community sitting on the shelf, but it's even less than that if sitting in pieces among scorched fuel tanks and smoldering bits of a once-cherry red iconic car.
Greg KO6TH
Pete Parisetti wrote:
...that many people might be asking now.
Rather than taking ballast - for that, besides marketing, is basically what a car is - couldn't one one the next test flights carry the P3E satellite that AMSAT-DL has had on the shelf for quite some time now? 140 Kg wouldn't make a hair of a difference for a thing capable of lifting 60 tons.
Is anybody talking to them?
Always hopeful, even after so many years...
Pete MM0TWX
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Sent via [email protected]. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb