ILN... Is this our future ride to the moon? MM
Yes Exactly!
We need to form a proposal team that can evaluate the data to find out if an EME-Repeater is viable.
Time is short.
First ask Experts if building a transponder for the Moon is feasible with current technology.
If it were, How many Amateur radio operators would be able to afford such a project? We know the are hundreds of Hams, which have used EME at one time, or another.
If we build a working transponder, how many more hams would have access to and EME-Repeater?
Based on the number of users that could build an EME-Repeater link, we would go ahead with the idea and take it to the next phase. There no sense in building an EME-Repeater project if only a hundred people would be able to access the EME-Repeater.
So if the project looks feasible and there is a big enough potential group of Amateur Radio stations that would uses such a project, then we would start talking to all of our contacts at NASA, ESA, RSA to see if we can get some additional support to help with the project.
Thanks Miles
--- On Sun, 7/5/09, Armando Mercado am25544@triton.net wrote:
From: Armando Mercado am25544@triton.net Subject: [amsat-bb] ILN... Is this our future ride to the moon? To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Sunday, July 5, 2009, 2:48 PM Greetings,
The International Lunar Network appears to be the unmanned landers NASA is planning to put on the moon. The program is working to put 2 landers on the moon in the 2012-2014 time frame.
Here are some excerpts from a Request for Information by NASA regarding instruments for its International Lunar Network (ILN). Pay special note to the mass and power limits.
Is this what we are talking about putting a transponder on?
73, Armando, N8IGJ
Date Released: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Source: Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Solicitation: Instruments for U.S. International Lunar Network (ILN) Lunar Missions
Description of Anticipated Requirement
NASA expects to emplace the first two nodes (the "anchor" nodes) of the ILN in the 2012-2014 timeframe with two additional nodes to be emplaced roughly two years later, depending on funds availability. All nodes will carry identical core instrument payloads. The ILN mission requires long lived instruments which can be operated as a network for six years (the anchor nodes will necessarily have to last longer). It is anticipated that a very small amount of power will be available to enable continuous operation through the lunar night.
Concept studies for the spacecraft are now under development at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center working with the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of The Johns Hopkins University. The mission will be tightly constrained in both mass and power. It is expected that the total available mass for all payload instruments will be approximately 15 kg, although the precise mass available for the payload will depend on the launch vehicle and other trades still being considered. The total available payload power will be approximately 15 W.
The total budget for the ILN anchor nodes including development and operations is $200M. Schedule and budget constraints require that NASA mission planners focus on relatively mature instruments.
See the following links for more info:
http://www.moontoday.net/news/viewsr.html?pid=29834%C2%A0 (The full Request for Information)
http://iln.arc.nasa.gov/welcome%C2%A0 (General info on ILN)
http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/file_download/26/ILN+Final+Report.pdf
(Detailed info on ILN... Note: large file 13MB)
Happy reading,
Armando, N8IGJ
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
On Mon, 2009-07-06 at 05:53 -0700, MM wrote:
Yes Exactly!
We need to form a proposal team that can evaluate the data to find out if an EME-Repeater is viable.
Time is short.
One thing, Miles.
Frank Bauer commented: On another topic, WRT the Lunar ILN, if you read the solicitation, they are discussing *15 kg* payloads. And these need to accomplish some scientific objective to further lunar exploration. Given this, I do not think the ILN is a viable AMSAT project.
What would be the SCIENTIFIC payload that we would be providing?
I know that I mentioned in previous replies that we MIGHT be able to land a chance on something that A government would be doing if we could MAYBE provide a communications package for a craft. Going by Frank's statement and putting it into the context of what we are planning, I would NOT be surprised that we got turned down because we are not prov- iding something that contributes to the SCIENTIFIC nature of the mission. The government probably ALREADY has a contractor to build and provide the communications package(s) for these missions.
Is there anything else that is being proposed that we can get in on the ground floor to provide this knowledge and equipment? I haven't seen anything and personally I didn't even know about the ILN even.
I am NOT trying to be the one to burst the bubble here. This subject HAS been brought up a number of times over the past four years of putt- ing something on the lunar surface. Each time, the answers and suggest- ions have gotten better as we have gotten more people that know what it takes climb on board the discussion. Hopefully this time this discussion will get past just that, discussion, and progress to an Idea of Concept stage that can then be taken to the next step, finding a suitable candi- date for this.
James W8ISS
Hi Miles,
To get an idea about the difficulty to designe and build a transponder that must work on the moon I suggest to carefully see the following links.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19720012254_1972012254. pdf
If you have problems to get the above NASA report from internet I can send a pdf file to you or to any people is interested but it is about 4 MB long
Also the following pictures and drawings are self explanatory.
http://www.myspacemuseum.com/alsep01.htm
After reading both the above papers you will realize that the task is very hard viable by any amateur team.
73" de
i8CVS Domenico
----- Original Message ----- From: "MM" ka1rrw@yahoo.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org; "Armando Mercado" am25544@triton.net Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 2:53 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] ILN... Is this our future ride to the moon? MM
Yes Exactly!
We need to form a proposal team that can evaluate the data to find out if an EME-Repeater is viable.
Time is short.
First ask Experts if building a transponder for the Moon is feasible with current technology.
If it were, How many Amateur radio operators would be able to afford such a project? We know the are hundreds of Hams, which have used EME at one time, or another.
If we build a working transponder, how many more hams would have access to and EME-Repeater?
Based on the number of users that could build an EME-Repeater link, we would go ahead with the idea and take it to the next phase. There no sense in building an EME-Repeater project if only a hundred people would be able to access the EME-Repeater.
So if the project looks feasible and there is a big enough potential group of Amateur Radio stations that would uses such a project, then we would start talking to all of our contacts at NASA, ESA, RSA to see if we can get some additional support to help with the project.
Thanks Miles
--- On Sun, 7/5/09, Armando Mercado am25544@triton.net wrote:
From: Armando Mercado am25544@triton.net Subject: [amsat-bb] ILN... Is this our future ride to the moon? To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Sunday, July 5, 2009, 2:48 PM Greetings,
The International Lunar Network appears to be the unmanned landers NASA is planning to put on the moon. The program is working to put 2 landers on the moon in the 2012-2014 time frame.
Here are some excerpts from a Request for Information by NASA regarding instruments for its International Lunar Network (ILN). Pay special note to the mass and power limits.
Is this what we are talking about putting a transponder on?
73, Armando, N8IGJ
Date Released: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Source: Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Solicitation: Instruments for U.S. International Lunar Network (ILN) Lunar Missions
Description of Anticipated Requirement
NASA expects to emplace the first two nodes (the "anchor" nodes) of the ILN in the 2012-2014 timeframe with two additional nodes to be emplaced roughly two years later, depending on funds availability. All nodes will carry identical core instrument payloads. The ILN mission requires long lived instruments which can be operated as a network for six years (the anchor nodes will necessarily have to last longer). It is anticipated that a very small amount of power will be available to enable continuous operation through the lunar night.
Concept studies for the spacecraft are now under development at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center working with the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of The Johns Hopkins University. The mission will be tightly constrained in both mass and power. It is expected that the total available mass for all payload instruments will be approximately 15 kg, although the precise mass available for the payload will depend on the launch vehicle and other trades still being considered. The total available payload power will be approximately 15 W.
The total budget for the ILN anchor nodes including development and operations is $200M. Schedule and budget constraints require that NASA mission planners focus on relatively mature instruments.
See the following links for more info:
http://www.moontoday.net/news/viewsr.html?pid=29834 (The full Request for Information)
http://iln.arc.nasa.gov/welcome (General info on ILN)
http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/file_download/26/ILN+Final+Report.pdf
(Detailed info on ILN... Note: large file 13MB)
Happy reading,
Armando, N8IGJ
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
_______________________________________________ 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
participants (3)
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i8cvs -
James French -
MM