David,

Something to put on the To Do List. There is a great deal of experience on that team, and it shows in how fast they are able to move to reach initial operational capability.

Alan WA4SCA

-----Original Message----- From: G0MRF@aol.com [mailto:G0MRF@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 12:55 PM To: APBIDDLE@mailaps.org; amsat-bb@AMSAT.Org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: Congrats to SpaceX

In a message dated 09/12/2010 13:37:06 GMT Standard Time, APBIDDLE@UNITED.NET writes:

According to a report I saw from the NSS, they also deployed 4 CubeSats. Not a useful orbit for us, but a sign of good things to come. Alan WA4SCA

Hi Alan.

If they waited until the second stage had been removed from LEO, those cubesats would have had an apogee of 11,000km

A very nice orbit......if it could be circularised to avoid the radiation belts.

Thanks

David G0MRF

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 2:54 PM, G0MRF@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 09/12/2010 13:37:06 GMT Standard Time, APBIDDLE@UNITED.NET writes:

According to a report I saw from the NSS, they also deployed 4  CubeSats. Not a useful orbit for us, but a sign of good things to  come.

Alan WA4SCA

At the small satellites conference of the International Astronautical Congress in Prague this year, Andrews Space's president gave details about his new Spaceflight Services company, which aims to provide retail pricing and service for small satellite launches.[1] For X dollars, you get a date and place with your name on it, basically. The eye-opener for me was that he was including launches in various cubesat configurations all the way down to 1U, and in orbits up to GTO. Some of this was arranged through a contract with SpaceX.

If I remember correctly, a 3U cubesat to GTO was under $800,000. Obviously this is a huge technical challenge -- could we fit in a 1U what would be necessary to go up to HEO, leaving 2U for our comms hardware --, but imagine if an AMSAT organization could know that once they'd raised and paid the $800,000, their bird would fly in, say, two years. I think this would make raising the money in the first place a much easier thing. (Even better, if they could tell their donors that they have an insured launch and duplicate hardware!)

What this says to me is that the efforts being put into miniaturization through Fox are finally putting us on the winning side of the curve and provide us with further opportunities in the future, maybe even opportunities in HEO.

[1] http://www.andrews-space.com/news.php?subsection=MzQw

Hi Alan.

If they waited until the second stage had been removed from LEO, those cubesats would have had an apogee of 11,000km

A very nice orbit......if it could be circularised to avoid the radiation belts.

Thanks

David  G0MRF _______________________________________________ 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