*No argument that launches to HEO cost money. Every launch costs money. Has anyone tabulated launch costs for the last 10=15 years? Projecting forward 10 years 10 satellite launches into LEO at $100K each is a million dollars. This of course is made up, but has anyone looked at the options of how to fund an HEO launch? If not why not? I get a sense that AO-40 sort of put a damper on things, where instead we should have dusted off and launched AO-41.*

*"Howie DeFelice* howied231 at hotmail.com mailto:amsat-bb%40amsat.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5Bamsat-bb%5D%20Elections%20HEO%20QO-100%27%20Linear%20NB%20%2B%20Digital%20WB&In-Reply-To=%3CMN2PR14MB3517642671013610148975FAE7780%40MN2PR14MB3517.namprd14.prod.outlook.com%3E

/Tue Jul 21 10:56:22 UTC 2020/

If Bill was still around I would ask him, I do miss him. There may be some details in the corporate records but as an alternate board member I don't have access to those archives. Perhaps some of the current board can provide the details. My memory of what I heard was that Intelsat treated the request as a commercial RFQ and we got the commercial price that was many times the cost to orbit AO-40. Any new HEO satellite is going to require huge amounts of money no matter what. The ability to raise funds will be the MOST IMPORTANT part of getting a HEO satellite launched. Anybody who says different does not know what they are talking about.

Howie AB2S"