We need a very wealthy individual or two to get into the hobby and
decide
they want to work a HEO! If I were to win the lottery or somehow come
into
a few tens of millions of dollars, I'd pony up for the launch.
Honestly, though, the numbers aren't completely unrealistic. A long and
coordinated worldwide fundraising campaign could get it done.
However, the
website includes the following sentence:
"The P3E-satellite should be ready for launch by mid-2007."
http://www.p3e-satellite.org/en_EN/amsat.html
Who's going to donate to a project when the website hasn't even been
updated in over six years? I see it mentioned often that P3E is
"essentially ready to go." If that's the case, why not press forward.
As a
relative newcomer, I'm often frustrated about the lack of updates about
anything and websites that are wildly out of date. I know that
everyone is
a volunteer and busy with other things, but would it be so difficult to
send out an update about what's going on once in a while? For example,
TurkSat-3USAT was launched back in April. There have been absolutely no
updates from anyone about what happened. Obviously the beacon is not
transmitting and the transponder is not on, but what happened? Is there
hope for recovery? If it has failed, the entire community could benefit
from knowledge about what has happened so that similar failures don't
happen in the future. Then there is AO-27. The website was last
updated in
January saying it will be several months before they know if the
satellite
can be recovered. A quick update would be appreciated, even if it's
something like: "Due to time constraints, we haven't been able to
attempt
recovery."
Things like this lead to the perception that this aspect of the hobby is
dying. There is very little traffic on this reflector and not too much
traffic on other web forums for amateur satellite operation. (See the
QRZ
forum topic "Is AMSAT dead?") I know there's always a lot going on
"behind
the scenes," but the lack of conversation and updates about what's
going on
doesn't really encourage hams to get involved or make donations.
73,
Paul, N8HM
Washington, DC
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 8:49 AM, Alan <[email protected]> wrote:
Peter,
Most of us really miss the old birds. I was transferring satellite
QSOs
from the 1980s through the
early 2000s to my electronic logbook, and was amazed at what I worked.
AMSAT-DL has an excellent P3 satellite, currently being updated, but
essentially ready to go. Here is
the problem: $5M - $10M launch costs to HEO. Even a super discount
rate
of $1M would be impractical.
In the old days, we could beg, borrow, and barter for launches at
nominal
rates on test flights.
Unfortunately, the launch industry has matured, and can find buyers for
even the smallest spaces and
mass. Sometimes counties can get what I think of as National Prestige
Rates for a first launch, but
those days are largely behind us. Personally, I am confident that
AMSAT-DL will fly their satellite,
but it is clear that future HEOs will be few and far between.
That is the highly abbreviated answer.
73s,
Alan
WA4SCA
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Peter Klein
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 1:59 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [amsat-bb] High orbit satellites?
What are the chances that there will be another high-orbit satellite
like AO-10 and AO-13? Does AMSAT have any plans in that direction
since
the demise of AO-40? My main satellite interest is live communication
with faraway places, and I really miss those Molnya birds.
--Peter, KD7MW
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_______________________________________________
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author.
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Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
_______________________________________________
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