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

[Bdale Garbee]

Phil Karn via Ground-Station
<ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> writes:

> 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. 

That seems true for AMSAT-NA, but to me at least, it doesn't map to
AMSAT-DL's history as well.  Of course, ever since the ITAR fiasco, it's
been hard for those of us in the US to directly contribute to non -NA
AMSAT work.  I really miss hanging out and working with our -DL
friends... 

> 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.

Ditto.

I recall sitting in the cafeteria in Kourou at lunch one day during the
AO-40 launch campaign, listening in on a conversation between two of my
team-mates.  They spent the entire time we were at lunch (30-60
minutes?) reviewing how they'd decided what drill bit diameter and
spacing to use to intentionally vent the edges of the solar panel
frames.  The panel backs were made from aluminum honeycomb sheets that
were internally perforated to allow gas migration, but when they were
skinned and framed the adhesive used sealed them, and thus they had to
be vented to prevent the panel from swelling or exploding when it
reached vacuum.

I had this little epiphany as we were walking back to the lab from the
cafeteria that there were probably hundreds, if not thousands of such
conversations that had gone on during the P3D / AO-40 development and
launch campaign, each one of which involved a need for real technical
expertise and practical experience to get to the right answer.

There may not be any "secrets" to successfully building small
satellites, but if you want to be successful there's a huge pile of
stuff to comprehend and wrangle.

73 - Bdale, KB0G
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