[amsat-bb] Eagle, Echo and SpaceQuest: My Personal View

["Tom Clark \(W3IWI\)" <w3iwi@xxxxxxxx>]

Let me explain a bit about SpaceQuest, in answer to some of these questions.
The comments I express are my personal views and have not been passed thru
any official AMSAT review process. So I personally take responsibility for
any errors of omission or commission I may make. I chime in only because the
tenor of comments on this topic has become a bit too ugly and accusatory for
my tastes.

> << All I know about SpaceQuest is found in the minutes of the AMSAT-NA BOD
>  meeting on page 27 of the JAN/FEB issue of the AMSAT Journal.  This
latest
>  issue of the Journal, which I haven't had time to read yet, has an
article
>  on Eagle, and so it might also mention SpaceQuest >>
>
> Try:
>
> http://www.spacequest.com/faq.asp
>
> Interesting that they are in Fairfax, VA...Just outside of DC

Yes, please do read the material in the latest Journal!

SpaceQuest was formed by a couple of AMSAT folks. When hit the web page
indicated, you will se the photo of two people. On the left, the younger
fellow is Mark Kanawati, N4TPY and on the right is Dr Dino Lorenzini,
KC4YMG. After AMSAT built the original 4 Microsats, the design was licensed
to a commercial firm who tried to exploit the technology. The result was
AO-27 which many of you have used. The firm that built AO-27 (which carried
both amateur and non-amateur hardware) got out of the business and Mark and
Dino picked up the pieces as SpaceQuest.

In the intervening years, they have evolved the original Microsat design
several more notches. SpaceQuest provided the design and some hardware
modules to the Saudi Arabian University for them to fabricate as a student
project in Saudi Arabia.

Because a launch for Eagle was proving to be a problem and appeared to some
of us be far in the future, discussions of an interim LEO series became
interesting; those discussions would have probably never started if an
affordable "ride" for Eagle had been identified! The idea was to augment
Eagle with a project that might come to fruition in a year or two (even if
Eagle took 5 years or more).

The prime candidate for an early LEO flight is an advanced communications
concept originated by Phi Karn, KA9Q. This is discussed in detail by Rick
Hambly in the latest AMSAT Journal, on http://www.amsat.org, and on
http://www.gpstime.com.

For many us who had a hand in building the Microsats in 1988-1991, the idea
of doing small LEO satellites has been magical. To this day we think on
those satellites as a personal, all-time high. And we think that they were
an all-time high for AMSAT-NA too.

Since AO-27, SpaceQuest has been improving on our original Microsat
technology. So to us it made great sense to make use of their improvements
of the breed. Hence last fall AMSAT entered into discussions with Mark and
Dino to use much of their (now commercial) hardware. The idea was for them
to supply some designs and widgets. Then AMSAT volunteers (hopefully newer,
younger ones since folks like me are past our prime!) would assemble and
test the satellite, including providing some of the new technology that I
for one would like to see us develop (like LEO L/S-Band capabilities.

There has been a lot of QRM about the FM EZsat capabilities. To fly a
spacecraft, we need Telecommand capability and we need housekeeping
telemetry. Here Mark has done an incredible job of improving our original
design. The configuration he suggested had 4 redundant 2M uplink receivers
and two redundant 70 cm downlink transmitters. It was not hard to come up
with schemes so this hardware could also be used for communications links.
The capability comes free. Of course, if the membership objects to its use,
it can be left turned off!

In the early days of amateurs satellites, a young student named Martin
Sweeting became one of the AMSAT family (initially by being an AO-6 and -7
command station). He had a vision that small satellite technology initiated
in the amateur ranks could have an impact on the world. After finishing his
Ph.D., Martin developed a satellite technology program at the Univ. of
Surrey that has spawned all the UoSAT, and then a successful commercial
firm, and a number of students with advanced degrees and a number of
satellites built on the UoSAT lines done at technology schools in other
countries (Kitsat, Posat and many others). For this effort Martin was
recently given a sword and dubbed Sir Martin by the Queen. It is my fervent
hope that the small satellite firms that have grown out of AMSAT-NA like
Mark & Dino's SpaceQuest, and WD0E's Colorado Satellite Services (see
http://www.coloradosatellite.com/), and W3GEY's Ecliptic
(http://eclipticenterprises.com/) have as much success as Sir Martin has
had.

I would really like to have you view AMSAT's partnering with SpaceQuest as a
marriage made in heaven and not the evil thing that seems to be implied in
some of the recent messages.

73 de Tom, W3IWI



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