Awesome opportunity for a satellite project!

[SEDShead]

My friend Tim (former University of Arizona SEDS president) now works for Motorola, and forwarded me info about the following exciting opportunity.

It might be slightly out of the scope of a regular chapter project, but if your university/department is considering a satellite project, this would be a phenominal start!

--Begin forwarded message--
To anyone interested...

Motorola has two Iridium satellite busses from Lockheed left in their
factory in Chandler, AZ. I spoke with the launch team today (just back
from the final Iridium launch in Bakinor). They say the two frames left
are under negotiaion for purchase from Iridium, but it looks like they
will most likely be donated to an educational institution.

I asked if they had talked to the U of A. There are two complete
satellite busses with the radio panels and K-band antennea. "All you
would need is the payload" (communications software). If anyone wants to
try and put a proposal together to get these donated to the U of A space
sciences department, space grant or UA SEDS please let me know. I will
try to get the right people together for a win-win deal.


Thanks,
Tim Van Devender
tlv@seds.org
vandev1@email.mot.com

[Daniel]

Hi,
This sound very interesting, any more details ?
Are the buses complete with instrumants ? Is there a change for an international project on this ?

In short more details will be much welcome :)
-daniel

[SEDShead]

Daniel,

It doesn't sound like any instruments are included (you are to design and build them), and I'm not sure what is included outside of the communications system (power, guidance, etc). I'd recommend contacting Tim directly for the details. I don't know any more than what I included above.

As far as donating it to a non-US entity, there would probably be some significant ITAR regulations to be overcome, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try if you're interested.

[Daniel]

Hi chris,
I think this project will be above the ability of any single chapter out there :). I think a better option is to make it a multi-chapter project, It will also be much easier to get a satellite IMHO this way, not to consider the launch cost - If i'm correct this is a 700kg satellite, and I doubt that any "free" or near free launch can be found.......

First we should form somekind of a team to get more information, set a mission and finnally, submit a proposal. Is there any kind of a time limit to this?
And regarding Israel, well I think it is too much for us :) The only dedicated Space research Institute is already busy designing Teomim, and another full fledged science satellite might prove too much, both time and economic wise, althougth i liked the thought :D.

-daniel
p.s. There should be no problems with international co-op on this, if it is donated and the program is managed by US institute, right?

[SEDShead]

If i'm correct this is a 700kg satellite, and I doubt that any "free" or near free launch can be found.......

Good that you noticed this :) I think this will be the biggest barrier to entry for most groups. It will be difficult, if not near impossible to get this into orbit in the current environment. Perhaps it would better serve to have as a spacecraft "not in space" but actually operated on the ground for educational purposes.

As for a multi-chapter project, that's a possibility, if there's interest, but that must come from the various chapters. I'm not about to push this on anyone.

As for time limitation, I suspect that a "good home" might pop up rather soon (AMSAT, Surrey, etc) so the time window is probably very limited. Again, check with Tim on the details, I'm just the messenger.

[neubjr]

This Iridium satelite opportunity to me seems like something that SEDS should jump on if at all possible. There are several reasons for this:

1. I think that SEDS as a whole really needs a "main" project to work on. I guess right now we could say that getting SEDS national/international organized and back to full steam is this main project now. However, I really think that having one or two more "technical project" projects will be great for SEDS.

2. An inter-chapter project like this involving several SEDS chapters could really bring some attention to our organization. And also really help with chapter relations etc.

I admit that this will be a very hard project to complete. Especially if we are trying to actually launch the satelite. But I think it is something that can be done.... if we have enough interest in it. I know that not everyone involved in SEDS will read this post thread, is there a way that we can search out any real interest in this? Maybe post an email to the chapter contacts?

As I see it, to do this project, we need to go through several stelps:

1. see who is interested and weigh whether or not we have enough interest to go forward.
2. If we do have the interest, then we need to formulate a proposal for what we want to do with the project (i.e. what kind of science or communication, or whatever, we want the satelite to do... or if we just want it to be an on Earth educational satelite...).
3. Once we have a proposal we can take this to the iridium people and convince them to let us have their satelite bus.

And then we take it from there. I would really like to see if there is more interest out there. If we could send a little notice about this to any chapter contacts and just see if they have any interest in being part of this project, that could be great.

I am personally really interest in starting up multichapter projects. And I think that this is a real opportunity we should look into. Thoughts?

-Joshua.

[Daniel]

Hi,

First an email on this has been sent on the mailing list, so I assume most of the SEDS activists know about it.

While I agree in the need for a major research project, I don't think this should be one. The launch possibility is very slim, and to use as a ground satellite is not exciting.

I think it will be easier to get support for a 10-50kg satellites, which is easy to launch as piggyback (even for free or for symbolic sum), and since it is much more likely to go up there, hence it is more exciting.

Regarding the lunar project sorry for the delay, but we are stcuk cause of exams.

[neubjr]

I agree that something like this would be a very very hard and ambitious project to undertake. I think in the beginning I just looked at it and was like, "wow, free satellite bus" cool! But thinking about it longer, I agree that it is probably not the best idea for a project to undertake right now.

I also agree that small (<20kg) playloads that can be easily piggy-backed would be a better option if we wanted to look into some type of launch project.

Just a little question. What ever became of the Iridium satellites that were put into orbit? I cannot remember myself.

-Joshua.

[Daniel]

from memory,

circa 1999-2000 all of them were in orbit, but the original company was in big shit, and was being offered on sale. Some ppl took the change and bought the whole deal (2 bil. network) for 10-30 million, don't remember, they are named iridium LLC instead of iridium before.
Sometime ago (year or so) they got a really nice contract from the US army, and the prospects are getting better for survival.

[lhianeaivee]

wow that is interesting well im a subscriber to XM but that was before...now im using sirius well i found out that its ok for me using the devices of sirius especially the stilleto 2 (http://www.sirius.com/freeradio) well i don’t have the pix but you can see it to this link...http://www.sirius.com/freeradio

--------
many thanks!

Lhianeaivee