[Ground-station] Phase 5? Invite to conference, open source payload

[Michelle Thompson]

Steve Conklin asked Barbara Cohen about what our next steps for Phase 4
Space should be, and she recommended taking a serious look at attending
this meeting:

https://cubesats.gsfc.nasa.gov/symposium.html

We have an opportunity consider planetary or Phase 5 work. We are being
encouraged to think about it and come up with proposals.

I've talked with a lot of people over the past week from a wide variety of
organizations, all of whom have been positive and encouraging. We  are
negotiating funding sources that will make a payload possible, and we
received an offer for radiation testing. More progress on this has happened
in the past week than in the prior six months. Let's try and capitalize on
this.

I want to support and enable an open source payload that uses our air
interface (FDM up, DVB-S2/X + GSE down).

We won't be the first open source satellite in orbit. That honor belongs to
UPSat, from Libre Space.

I am not interested in seeing us at LEO. No we don't have to do something
interplanetary. The baseline to date has been 6U GEO. Several existing
designs have provided some framework, and there's discussion of a drawing.

What do we need to do now? We need additional people. We have a small
payload team right now. We do need more.

We need someone that is not me to lead it. It is a big job, but not
impossible. I have asked some wonderful people that have recently become
free, and am interested in recommendations from all of you.

If I lead it, we build a spacecraft to go do amateur radio around Mercury.
See, you want someone a bit less gonzo. I will provide support to the best
of my abilities, but someone not pied pipering off to Mercury has to be out
there. :+)

Questions? Comments? As always, the floor is yours.
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