[amsat-bb] go ahead for P3-E and P5-A

[Peter Guelzow <peter.guelzow@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,

the following will be officially announced at the AMSAT-UK
Colloquium this weekend.

73s Peter DB2OS

.................................................................



             AMSAT-DL announces formal go-ahead
                      for space missions
                "Phase 3-E" and "Phase 5-A"

In July 2002 the AMSAT-DL (Germany) board of directors gave its
official green light to develop and build the two spacecrafts
AMSAT-Phase 3-E (P3E) and AMSAT-Phase 5-A (P5A). The high
acceptance of the mission goals of these two projects expressed
in the recent AMSAT-DL member's survey was the final element to
arrive at this decision. Both satellites will be created in a common
development process by an international team under the
leadership of AMSAT-DL. The P3E satellite is to be launched as
communication and scientific platform into a highly elliptical orbit
around Earth. The second project with the working name "AMSAT-
Phase 5-A" is destined to enter an orbit around the planet Mars.
This spacecraft will then transmit scientific data to Earth - data
from experiments on-board P5A as well as - via its repeater
function - from experiments on the Martian surface or the planet's
atmosphere.

So far three successful Phase 3 satellites were launched under
the leadership of AMSAT-DL. The latest satellite of this series,
P3D (now operational as AMSAT-OSCAR 40), was launched in
2000 and demonstrated sufficient bus and propulsion capabilities
for a flight to Mars. So AMSAT-DL started a closer investigation
into the possibility of such a mission. Based on the existing
experience base and the overwhelming interest during the
AMSAT-DL International Satellite-Workshop last year, the P5A
spacecraft will not only carry scientific experiments, but also
subpayloads to be released in direction to the Martian surface.
Suitable launch windows to Mars exist in the years 2007 and 2009.

Two or three years earlier P3-E to be launched in an orbit around
Earth is expected to continue the successful series of AMSAT-
Phase 3 satellites. The main task of P3E is to serve as
communication platform for the nearly 2 million radio amateurs
worldwide. They constitute a network for further exploration of the
so called "uncoordinated multiple access", to provide simultaneous
and freely available service to a large number of groundstations.
Using existing technology and implementing the results of the
member's survey, several transponders on frequencies between
145 MHz and 10 GHz are planned for P3E. Details will be fixed in a
design and payload meeting in the second half of 2002.
Additionally the P3-E spacecraft will be an important test bed for
some technology needed for the Mars mission. Work on the P3-
bus has been started and a number of modules are already under
construction.

So far all AMSAT-DL satellite missions in 1980, 83, 88 and 2000
were launched with ARIANE-launchers from French Guyana into
geostationary transfer orbits. The excellent co-operation between
Arianespace (with its current ARIANE-5-launch-system) and
AMSAT-DL resulted in the development of various arrangements
for the launch of secondary payloads on-board of ARIANE-
launches. Thus Arianespace will be the first obvious choice for the
launches of P3E and P5A.

Peter Gülzow, DB2OS, President AMSAT-DL
Frank Sperber, DL6DBN, Vice President AMSAT-DL
Prof. Dr. Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, Projectleader


First background information about both missions can be found at:

http://www.amsat-dl.org/p3e/towards-p3e.pdf
http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/p5a-to-mars.pdf





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