Re: Request for AMSAT Engineering and Operations
Zach,
I am not sure Peter is reading these messages therefore I will chime in.
The Es'hail-2 satellite is not of amateur design, that is correct. Es'hail-2 is rather a commercial communication satellite based on a MELCO DS-2000 platform.
However, QO-100 is a ham-radio payload hosted on Es'hail-2. The idea, system level design, specification, design requirements were done by AMSAT-DL and
as the owner of the satellite did not want to take any risk he decided to get the hardware build by a commercial company. AMSAT-DL members were part of the requirements reviews, critical design review and the design validation.
QO-100 is not simply using modified hardware paths as there is no such path on commercial communication satellites. For instance, they normally do not have an S-band uplink nor a linear narrowband transponder (with a configurable AGC).
The ground stations in Qatar and Bochum were designed and also built by AMSAT-DL (except for the dish in Qatar which was also donated by the owner of Es'hail-2.
Peter DB2OS made an excellent job getting the people in Qatar excited about Ham Radio and hosting such a unique payload on Es'hail-2.
This is how the first geostationary satellite Phase-4-A aka QO-100 was born and meanwhile people from more than 110 countries distributed over almost half the Earth can enjoy its fantastic capabilities.
BTW compared to the complexity of the AO-40 satellite, QO-100 is actually much simpler. So, I would say that AO-40 was the Ferrari 😉
Kind regards
Matthias
www.dd1us.dehttp://www.dd1us.de
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Zach Metzinger <zmetzing@pobox.commailto:zmetzing@pobox.com> Gesendet: Dienstag, 26. Januar 2021 19:49 An: amsat-bb@amsat.orgmailto:amsat-bb@amsat.org Betreff: [AMSAT-BB] Re: Request for AMSAT Engineering and Operations
On 1/26/21 12:11 PM, Jean Marc Momple wrote:
outstanding results such as QO-100
Small notes, as I have to get back the paying job in a few minutes:
1) This satellite is not of amateur design. According to AMSAT-DL's own publications, it is a Mitsubishi Electric Melco DS-2000.
2) If my memory is correct, one or more RF hardware paths were modified by Mitsubishi, to allow the satellite to operate in amateur allocations.
This satellite does not carry amateur-designed hardware. (If I'm wrong, Peter, please correct me.)
3) This satellite was possible due to some superb negotiation by the AMSAT groups on the other side of the pond with an oil-rich country that just happened to be going their way. Comparing it to Fox, or even AO-40, is like comparing a go-kart you built to a Ferrari a rich person gave you.
--- Zach
N0ZGO
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It is entirely the case that many of the curious people here are not able to participate in the satellite development process, for reasons of capability, or simply because they have other demands on their time.
They still have a right to know what's going on, to the deepest technical depth possible. There may be cases that a particular aspect of loading on the spacecraft is restricted, or the command system is not documented because it isn't actually cryptographically protected. But these should be very rare.
What you are running up against is the organizational default of running in secrecy, and making choices that enforce and continue the need to run in secrecy. This is obsolete and damaging to the organization. Two important results are that they can not clearly respond to problems in any way that the membership can see, their access to continuing funding is unnecessarily restricted.
Bruce
participants (2)
-
Bruce Perens -
Matthias Bopp