Eagle team members:
Bob Davis, Jim Sanford, and I met in Pittsburgh as the engineering executive team and we made some changes. Bob and Jim are Asst. VP Engineering and continue to remain in those offices until such time as they do not wish to hold them or another AMSAT opportunity interests them.
The office of project manager does not exist as of the annual meeting. I do NOT want this read the wrong way. There are some delicate negotiations that are about to take place with multiple entities. For all sorts of reasons, none of them having a single solitary thing to do with ego, performance, etc. require the person speaking on behalf of the project, for its budget, and direction must reside in the VPE.
As of the annual meeting and the budget passed by the AMSAT BOD, the only projects receiving funds in 2008 are RF payloads, antennas, SDX, ACP, and the Eagle structure. The Eagle structure is going forward because it serves multiple purposes. No funds will be expended on any of those systems that are unique to Phase 3 satellite systems since our goal, to put RF payloads on Intelsat, does not need solar panels, attitude sensors, attitude control mechanisms, etc. We are going to need to hold some meetings soon. I will call for them shortly.
As much as some of you disliked either the tone or approach of functional requirements and specifications, we are without choices now. We are going to have to talk to and work with some fairly serious engineering firms or offices about getting payloads built that will last for 15 years. We cannot do less than this and expect anyone to give us the millions of dollars this program is going to take. That said, I believe we can raise this money.
Expect more to follow shortly.
Bob