[Ground-station] Satellite Building

[Howie DeFelice]

Just wondering if there is interest in putting together a project to build a satellite. There is no particular launch in mind and no particular mission at this pint other than the generic Amateur Radio goal of furthering the art of communication. I think most will agree that the LAST thing we need another LEO. To simply exploit the microwave bands I think we want to consider orbits that allow hours of coverage at a time. A GEO would be great, a HEO would be really good. An overlooked orbit, at least in ham radio, is MEO. An orbit between 8000 and 10,000 Km would provide about 2 hours of coverage and orbit the earth about twice a day. The problem is that not too many people fly there so we need another  strategy. If we aren't in a big hurry, maybe we can get there from LEO. This means we need propulsion, attitude control, navigation, lots of solar power and a really cool radio. Does this sound reasonable? How  long would this actually take with a milli-Newton thruster ? I have attached a sketch of my first ideas.

- Howie AB2S
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