[Ground-station] HEO and GEO launch update

[Michelle Thompson]

HEO and GEO Launches

We don't like keeping secrets. However, we do have some secrets.

The Phase 4B payload, and the other related projects that we have actively
supported (like CQC) all require launches.

We have a launch with the Wide Field of View payload with the Air Force.
The good news is how well we did in getting engineering approval for this
launch. We have a ride. The bad news is the cost of the launch. It is $6
million and they can guarantee us about one year and not even guarantee us
it will be over the United States. We have decided we cannot ask the
community for $6M to support this launch. It's just not a good deal for US
hams.

Fortunately there's been a lot of work going on behind the scenes for
additional launches. This work has been going on for a while.

I can't share the details. I can say that our prospects have never been
better. Anyone following along and helping the project, anyone that has
been with us through a lot of challenging experiences, deserves to know
that we are absolutely serious, focused, and unrelenting in obtaining
multiple launches for this technology.

Traditionally, an amateur launch would be announced and then a payload
developed. With modern digital technologies taking significantly longer
development time than legacy technologies, and with opportunistic
short-notice launches becoming more the norm, this design pattern really
can't work for us. That's one of the reasons we need to work hard, now, as
if the launch was imminent. Howie DeFelice and I wrote an article for QEX
about this.

Working hard without a launch date is a lot to ask of people that are not
getting paid and in some cases not being given the support or recognition
they should be getting.

In the new year, we'll be doing just that and asking for more in terms of
technology demonstration and development from the team. The next big
technology demonstration will be HamCation, and the most ambitious goal for
that is to have LDPC working on an FPGA with interactive controls. This is
the heart of the coding part of the receiver.

A GNU Radio LDPC demonstration can be seen in a recent video report, and
the GPU version can be run by anyone with a late model Nvidia GPU.

Until HamCation, our goal is to get the air interface into the best
possible shape. We need to capture the excellent progress we've made and
make it as easy as possible for upcoming payloads to say "Yes!" to Phase 4
Ground.

There's plenty going on. Progress is good. Launch prospects are part of
that good news. A lot of the work is invisible during the negotiating
process, but we are working as hard as we can to make it more than worth
the wait.
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