You make an excellent point, but I think you are assuming that the sat would be equipped with a solid fuel or other form of combustible/volatile propulsion. A cold-gas microthruster along with some sort of variable magnetic stabilization could in theory work around any liability concerns as liquid nitrogen, helium, etc can't explode under most conditions. I'm not sure about size requirements/ restrictions however. I'm far from an expert but I would guess if something like this could make it into orbit, the thruster would provide enough power to nudge the sat up and then use the planets gravity to acelerate it out to at least a MEO. It might even be able to do something like this in something as small as a 3U cubesat.

Josh, KJ4VYR

On Oct 18, 2012, at 10:39 AM, Bruce kk5do@amsat.org wrote:

good question and of course pondered and explored in the past. in order to move a satellite, you have to have some sort of propulsion for it. weather a kick start motor or plasma ejector or something. all of these require some type of 'fuel'. now, that being said, 'fuel' takes up a lot of space, requires special storage containers that are heavy and... no one will let you put fuel on their rocket and when your fuel goes bang by accident their entire mission is gone. if we were to pay for a launch the price of having the fuel would be included in the launch company's quote. we would also have to have insurance to cover a catastrophic event for them, mucho expensive.

all said and done, yes, you can launch into an orbit and with the correct size motor/propulsion device, you could move it to where you want it. just not feasible. just like buying a grand piano, living on the 10th floor. can't go up stairs, can't go up elevator, if you want to get a crane or helicopter, you can get it there but then you have to bust out the side of the building. was the $100,000 trip to get that piano into your apartment worth the $5,000 cost of the piano?

73...bruce

On 10/18/2012 7:44 AM, Joshua wrote:

...

Morning folks, I'm a relatively new ham and started following amsat only a few months so forgive something of a novice question.

The biggest trouble I see the community hitching a ride to a high orbit although low orbits seem to be easy to get. So my question is this, who says we can't launch a sat in LEO and design it to move itself up to a higher orbit? I mean if NASA can build probes capable of reaching mars, it stands to reason we can build a bird to move only a few thousand miles.

Thanks, Joshua Abraham, KJ4VYR _______________________________________________ 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

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