[Ground-station] Call for discussion: ORI satellite program

[Robert McGwier]

Indeed.  USRA has funded Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, and Virginia to
design and fly three 3U cubesats in formation and to test cross linking.
Three axis stabilization and propulsion in these things are not feared any
more.  The chief impediment to all of these systems is cost and
certification where needed.

I don't agree, and haven't agreed,  with the "don't wait on a launch" in
the early days of any spacefaring organization that is trying to become one
of those.

The early days of an organization are mostly about team building and this
is made easier if many of the variables are removed.  I also have the
feeling that fund raising would be easier if you are pointing to something
specific as opposed to nebulous.

I will agree that polar orbiting Cubesat designs are becoming much easier
to get most of the designs for systems off the shelf and the most fun is in
the payload area.  AMSAT has done some of this work that is open source.
The Salmi brothers did the MPPT would optimizes the charging of batteries
from solar panels given sensor readings on current environmental conditions.

I look forward to continuing this conversation.

Bob


On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 1:14 PM, Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station <
ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:

> When I was actively promoting AMSAT at academic conferences over the past
> couple of years (IEEE, etc) I found out several things.
>
> First. There are plenty of examples of great CubeSat work. There's enough
> CubeSat engineering (open source) that has been figured out and tested in
> orbit to where the starting point is significantly past where AMSAT
> engineering seemed to be assuming it is. Phil is exactly right in that you
> can buy or build from published work everything, at this point, to make a
> pretty advanced CubeSat. You integrate whatever special job you want it to
> do, and then get in line with everyone else for the paperwork trail. Basic
> CubeSats are either a solved problem, or rapidly approaching one. They are
> viewed almost like a commodity now, and the biggest area of work for many
> of these academics is formation flying. Even constellations are old hat.
> The number of predicted commercial launches over the next two years is
> significant. The number of educational and science missions is projected to
> be flat. That means that as a fraction of launches, educational and
> scientific missions will experience additional pressure. Unless the number
> of launches rapidly increases, that is. That may be why you are seeing
> things like the DARPA rapid response launch challenge.
>
> I'm on record about what I think should happen on the space side with the
> QEX article I wrote with Howie DeFelice in late 2017, and I haven't changed
> my mind since then. Don't wait for a launch to build. Network your butt off
> and find out where you might fit. Be opportunistic.
>
> Another surprising thing I found is that no one in the US academic scene
> had any idea of who AMSAT was. This was not the case at all for the
> European and Asian and South American professors/industry people that
> presented work where amateur radio was incorporated and highlighted. They
> knew who their AMSAT-XX people were, often by name. This was a big source
> of concern to me because it meant AMSAT-NA appeared to be isolated and cut
> off from some of the exact people that the amateur service is supposed to
> be serving. Zach wrote a very good email recently about his views of his
> potential role to operate for educational reasons and his ambitions to
> carry this function out.
>
> Asking around industry and labs in the US, I didn't get a different
> result. Most people I talked to were surprised that amateur radio was still
> around as an experimental force - like, surprised it still existed at all -
> and were really surprised that we had a satellite service.
>
> One of the functions of an organization is to market ideas and raise
> awareness and enable collaboration across structured groups. I believe that
> there's a lot of work to be done to show the value and achievements of
> amateur radio in space to US based academic, scientific, and educational
> institutions. It's something we can help with a little bit as ORI, but
> can't solve. This is a problem really better addressed by an organization
> like AMSAT. We're not a replacement for AMSAT. We were created to be a
> member society specializing in open source digital work. This work was
> judged to not be a priority at this time. The work should go on with
> whoever does value it, and we should remain open to potential future
> support from AMSAT.
>
> My goal is to get a world-class DVB-S2/X implemented and working for both
> terrestrial and space. I'm all in on this and will do my best.
>
>
> -Michelle W5NYV
>
> "Potestatem obscuri lateris nescis."
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 12:12 AM, Phil Karn via Ground-Station <
> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>
>> On 4/22/18 19:00, Bruce Perens via Ground-Station wrote:
>>
>> > I don't know anything about satellites. I am trying to rectify that
>> > issue as fast as possible,
>>
>> Don't underestimate the value of experience. As hidebound as AMSAT may
>> have become, they do have a track record that began long before the
>> cubesat era. In fact, the cubesat idea was invented by Bob Twiggs
>> operating more or less under the broader amateur satellite umbrella.
>>
>> Satellite engineering is inherently multi-disciplinary; that is in fact
>> a lot of its value to engineering education. Lots of skilled people are
>> needed beyond the obvious electrical and computer engineers. A gap in
>> expertise can cause an entire project to fail because of overlooked
>> problems. Classic example: thermal design. A satellite in space is its
>> own little planet with its own radiation balance, just like the earth.
>> The physics is well understood, it just takes an engineer who
>> specializes in that stuff (usually mechanical or aerospace) to apply
>> their skills. I understand the basics, but EEs at Cornell were not
>> required to take thermodynamics so I didn't.
>>
>> > One thing that has struck me about AMSAT is that they have so far
>> > operated with only NASA as their launch partner,
>>
>> That's not actually true. Several major satellites with major AMSAT
>> North America involvement flew on the European Ariane, such as Phase
>> III-A, Oscar-10, Oscar-13, the Microsat constellation (Oscars 16-19),
>> Oscar-40 and probably some others I've forgotten. Numerous cubesats with
>> various degrees of AMSAT involvement have flown from Ukraine and
>> probably Russia, India and Japan. Only China (and North Korea) are
>> excluded for political reasons.
>>
>> I did the telemetry system for ARISSat-1, deployed from the ISS in 2011.
>> It was designed and built in the US but launched to the ISS on a Russian
>> Progress, deployed by Russian cosmonauts during an EVA and operated
>> under a Russian name (Kedr), license and callsign. (And the Russians
>> gave us virtually no credit, which really pissed me off.)
>>
>> But cooperation between US AMSAT and the rest of the world has
>> definitely diminished in recent years because of ITAR phobia.
>>
>>
>> > and they've always
>> > built a satellite only after there was a clear launch opportunity.
>>
>> This *is* a problem. Traditionally they get a launch opportunity with
>> *just* enough time to build something *if* the launch schedule slips (as
>> it almost always does). Then there's a mad rush to get the hardware to
>> the launch pad. Software is invariably an afterthought, often literally
>> sent up after the hardware.
>>
>> So AMSAT rarely does anything truly new, because they never allow
>> themselves the opportunity to develop stuff so it can be ready when the
>> launch opportunity appears. Like interesting digital stuff. (I've
>> already let it be known that I'm simply uninterested in doing another
>> telemetry system for a primarily analog satellite.)
>>
>> > So, my idea was to run an "Opportunistic" satellite program, in which we
>> > would construct cubesats and P-pods without a clear launch opportunity
>> > in advance, and then approach commercial launch providers (and others)
>> > with ready-to-fly equipment in hand when opportunities come up.
>>
>> I'd go farther than that -- an applied research program to develop and
>> prove (on the ground) novel (to hams) concepts so they can be ready for
>> actual development when the opportunity appears. The initial hardware
>> need not even be intended to resemble anything we could fly; it would
>> just be a proof of concept.
>> > We can also make better academic partnerships. Fully 50% of academic
>> > cubesats fail, due to lack of experience, poor component choice and
>> > engineering decisions, and because they don't understand radio well.
>>
>> Or thermal engineering...or mechanical structures, or lack of knowledge
>> of aerospace design standards...
>>
>> > There is also the issue that University projects aren't well equipped to
>> > continue to control the satellite over a period of years, and that FCC
>> > doesn't want paid employees as satellite licensees or operators if
>> > they're licensed in the Amateur service.
>>
>> Correct. This has been controversial in some quarters but I can't think
>> of a more worthwhile use of the ham bands than to support science and
>> engineering education. I don't care if they're university students or
>> individuals puttering in their basements.
>>
>> Where we have to be careful is when the main purpose of the satellite is
>> as a "bus" to support some large science project or commercial
>> engineering project, and the satellite operator is just after us for our
>> spectrum. There has to be a significant ham (and educational) component.
>>
>> > So, my thought was to partner with universities and to provide them with
>> > finished cubesats with room for their experiment, using Karn's modem
>> > rather than the poor AX.25 implementations they usually use, and
>> > operating the satellite for them after launch. They would get the launch
>> > and run their experiment. The satellite would be a hamsat during or
>> > after the experiment.
>>
>> There's already a flourishing cottage industry supporting cubesats. If
>> you've got the money, you can buy everything you need to support some
>> experiment.
>>
>> For example, I think ISIS (bad name choice) will sell you a complete
>> attitude control system for about $200K (the last time I checked). This
>> is not only outside of our budget, it bothers my sensibilities as a ham.
>>
>> What drew me to AMSAT in the early 1980s were truly clever hacks like
>> stabilizing satellites with bar magnets and painting measuring tape
>> antennas white and black to spin them with solar photon pressure. W1HDX
>> once designed a 137 MHz circularly polarized APT patch antenna out of a
>> 4'x8' sheet of Home Depot polyurethane insulation with aluminum on both
>> sides. You lay it on your roof, paint it to match and nobody in your
>> neighborhood will even know you have a prohibited outdoor antenna. This
>> is ham ingenuity.
>>
>> Unfortunately, these great hacks are getting a little long in the tooth.
>>
>> Momentum wheels and control electronics simply shouldn't cost that much,
>> and we need to use our brains to figure out how to do it cheaper and
>> better.
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Bob McGwier
Founder, Federated Wireless, Inc
Founder and Technical Advisor, HawkEye 360, Inc
Research Professor Virginia Tech
Chief Scientist:  The Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and
Technology
Senior Member IEEE, Facebook: N4HYBob, ARS: N4HY
Faculty Advisor Virginia Tech Amateur Radio Assn, Trustee K4KDJ
Member of PVRC (Roanoke-Blacksburg), TAPR,  life member of ARRL and AMSAT,
NRVR.ORG (Rocketry)
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