Lite nyheter från Nordamerika där det är nya friska ideer på gång för att få upp nya satelliter.
AMSAT Submits a Second NASA ELaNa Proposal
The official name of the project is “RadFxSat” and it is a joint
project with the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE)
at Vanderbilt University. AMSAT is providing the satellite bus
(Fox-1B) and ISDE is providing the experiment payload. The primary
mission is to advance the state of the art in understanding the
effects of space radiation on electronic components.
This is the first AMSAT satellite with science as the primary mis-
sion. This is very exciting as it potentially opens up new launch
opportunities. Since the data downlink and power required by the
experiment are modest, we expect to be able to operate the science
payload and the ham radio transponder simultaneously.
The satellite hardware design is the same as Fox-1 but there will
be substantial AMSAT work in systems engineering, project manage-
ment, software development, satellite construction and testing.
We requested a launch in the 2nd half of 2014 to a 650 km sun-synch-
ronous orbit which is the same as we requested for Fox-1. As in our
previous proposal, we also noted that the mission requirements can
be met over a wide range of orbits. The key elements are the need
for a high enough apogee to provide significant exposure to space
radiation and a minimum 10 year orbit lifetime.
While there can be no guarantee that our proposal will be accepted
by NASA, we believe that in its 241 pages (!) we have made a strong
case.
NASA is expected to announce the accepted proposals at the end of
January 2013.