Could the antenna be a launched in the craft as piece of small, folded reflective plastic that when activated by gas or ??, expands to a dish shape, and becomes a super large plastic large dish? The dish then could be any size we wanted it to be and not be a hindrance to the launch craft size. I've seen these but have trouble no putting my finger on the name. We could make the dish 30ft around and folded it could be 4 inches square.
Dave DM78qd // KA0SWT If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.-- Johnny Carson +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Tony Langdon Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 7:07 PM To: James French; AMSAT-BB Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: The Moon is our Future
At 02:30 AM 7/3/2009, James French wrote:
Why not use a L/s, U/L. or a U/s transponder for this? Why limit ourselves to V/u for everything? Aren't we supposed to 'experiment' with the higher frequencies we have allocated?
I agree. I believe the Moon is a job for the microwave bands. Antenna gain on both ends is easier to produce (for a fixed dish/array, the Moon end will be gain limited by the need to have the beam cover for the varying position of the Earth due to libration).
Comeing up with a method to align the antenna initially will be an interesting challenge. That will have to be automated, even if it's a one off process.
73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com
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