[jamsat-news:1893] ANS-060 AMSAT Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE

ANS-060

ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North
America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS reports on
the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who
share an active interest in designing, building, launching and
communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.


In this edition:
*  AMSAT Strategic Plan Announced
*  AMSAT at the Nanosat-3 Design Review
*  AMSAT HF Nets
*  This Week's News in Brief


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-060.01
AMSAT Strategic Plan Announced

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 060.01 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  February 29, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-060.01

To All Members,
In the following "AMSAT" refers only to AMSAT-NA except where specifically
shown.

Forward by Robin
February 21 and 22, 2004 may be considered as critical dates in the
continuing development of AMSAT.  Most of the Senior Officers together with
most of the Board of Directors  met to start developing the "New AMSAT
Strategic Plan". It is now some 5 years since the last plan was developed
and since that time your Board of Directors has undergone a radical change.
At the same time the world has also changed dramatically with 9-11, Enron,
Worldcom and a turn down in the economy of the  USA.  Your Board thought
that a new Strategic Plan should be developed taking these changes into
account, and the differences in thinking of the "New Board of Directors".

The theme of the meeting was to decide what the our membership (you) wanted
from AMSAT and what AMSAT must do to remain an active organization and
survive the next 8 to 10 years.  It was agreed that the strategic plan will
be under constant review thus continually pushing the 8 to 10 year time
period outwards.  A short Board meeting was held (Minutes to follow later)
at which Dick Jansson brought the BOD up to date on his thinking on Eagle,
then we tabled a motion on rules for "Electronic Board Meetings", until all
had a chance to review the matter for 24 hours.  The BOD meeting was
adjourned and we commenced the strategic Planning meeting.  In addition to
the Board members Stan Wood VP Engineering, Martha  Saragovitz Corporate
Secretary, Art Feller Treasurer, Bill Burden VP Strategic Planning, Jim
Jarvis Marketing Manager, Steve Diggs Assistant to the President,  and
Lee McLamb BOD Alternate were present. Apologies were received from Gunther
Meisse who was sick. The session was held under the direction of and with
the assistance of Gerald Youngblood who has held many such sessions with
similar organizations and was recommended to the Board.

After reviewing the Strengths/Weaknesses/ Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)
to AMSAT we were able to determine a Mission  and Vision for AMSAT which
includes a long range plan, and to which all present were able to commit
themselves.  This plan assumed  launching ECHO later this year, and the
successful launch of P3E by AMSAT-DL within the next 2 or 3 Years.  It takes
into account the possible launches of one or more Low Earth Orbit
satellites from one or more of New Zealand, Australia, and India  together
with other LEO satellites at the same time as Eagle.  The plan assumes that
although there will be AMSAT interest in AMSAT-DL's  P5E (to orbit Mars)
there will be very few AMSAT members who will have suitable equipment to
work that satellite.

AMSAT MISSION:
AMSAT is a non-profit volunteer organization which designs, builds and
operates experimental satellites and promotes space education.  We work in
partnership with government, industry, educational institutions and fellow
amateur radio societies.  We encourage technical and scientific, innovation
and promote the training and development of skilled satellite and ground
system designers and  operators.

AMSAT VISION:
Our Vision is to deploy High Earth Orbit satellite systems that offer daily
coverage by 2009 and continuous coverage by 2012.  AMSAT will continue
active participation in human space missions and support a stream of LEO
satellites developed in cooperation with the educational community and other
amateur satellite groups.

Commentary by Robin:
In both the mission and the vision we discussed using specific names (such
as ARISS) but decided it would be better to leave the statements generic.
Daily coverage by 2009  means two satellites in orbit such as P3E and  Eagle
well enough spaced apart that there would be one available everyday.
Continuous coverage means there will always be a high earth satellite for
some form of operation in North America (probably elsewhere too, but orbits
have to be developed for this).  These would include P3E, Eagle and another
as yet un-named satellite.

Although all present gave their agreement to these plans, much detailed work
remains to be done over the next several months to determine implementation
methods, your BOD will be meeting bi-monthly by teleconference to work on
these  issues.  Our first Teleconference will be to "Define Roles and
Expectations for BOD and Officer positions".  Meeting these goals will
require a great effort, particularly on behalf of  the members of the Board
of Directors. Each BoD member will have to become an active AMSAT
representative and fund raiser, we will be looking for support from  all of
the membership financially, technically and administratively.

73,
Robin Haighton, VE3FRH
President, AMSAT

[ANS thanks Robin, VE3FRH, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-060.02
AMSAT at the Nanosat-3 Design Review

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 060.02 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  February 29, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-060.02

NASA and the AFRL had a review/poster session with the University Nanosat 3
team of universities just a few weeks ago.  This was held near the Dulles
Airport in the DC area.  All 13 universities were in attendance.  We also
had a significant contingent of AMSAT leadership there including Tom Clark,
W3IWI, Art Feller, W4ART, Perry Klein, W3PK, Mark Kanawati, N4TPY and Frank
Bauer, KA3HDO.  They provided significant guidance to the university
students, the professors and to the NASA and AFRL members in attendance.
There was a lot of AMSAT hardware development knowledge in that room.  The
AMSAT team members had some substantial one-on-one dialogue with the
university teams on frequency coordination, dos and don'ts of spacecraft
design, etc.

This was our opportunity to discuss how their projects might fit into the
structure of amateur radio. Art and Tom had collected the relevant AMSAT &
IARU literature into one place. This 1 Mbyte data package included:

   Blank IARU Satellite Coordination Request
   The FAQ list prepared over the past year
   The DRAFT IARU Satellite frequency charts [AF] had collected
   Jan King's LEO Link Budget Excel spreadsheet
   The 34-page IARU document and checklist
   A "Join AMSAT" application
   A list of AMSAT mentors.
   And the new paper "What is AMSAT?" Annual Report

Art provided about half the universities with this material on CD, while Tom
provided the other half by "sneakernet" using a USB "chewing gum" memory
stick. This was material was also provided to update the closed USAF/NASA
University website.  Overall whole event was a win-win for the universities,
for the government agencies that sponsored it and for AMSAT.  Events like
this one hold great promise as a model for future collaborations with
universities building satellites.

There will be another University Nanosat review planned for the small sat
conference in August.  AMSAT has been invited to support this with
reviewers. Planning is underway for AMSAT experts to be there to provide
their guidance and sage knowledge to these young students.

[ANS thanks Frank, KA3HDO and Tom, W3IWI, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-060.03
AMSAT HF Nets

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 060.03 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  February 29, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-060.03

The following HF Nets meet weekly.  They generally feature AMSAT bulletins,
and answer many questions from newcomers and old-timers alike.

AMSAT International     Sun     1900 UTC     14.282 MHz
AMSAT-NA East Coast     Tue     2100 Eastern  3.840 MHz
AMSAT-NA Mid-America    Tue     2100 Central  3.840 MHz
AMSAT-NA West Coast     Tue     2000 Pacific  3.840 MHz
AMSAT-India Sat-chat    Sun     0730 IST      7.070 MHz

Additional information about VHF and local nets is available from the AMSAT
website at http://www.amsat.org/amsat/activity.html

[ANS thanks Paul, KB5MU, for the above information]

/EX


SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-060.04
This Week's News in Brief

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 060.04 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD.  February 29, 2004
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-060.04

**      The next attempt to launch Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta
will take place early next week, the launch operator Arianespace said Friday
after liftoff was postponed for the second time in 24 hours.  The Ariane 5
rocket was being brought back into final assembly building at the European
Space Agency's launch pad here, where technicians would replace an
insulation tile that broke off from its main fuel tank, Arianespace Director
General Jean-Yves Le Gall told the press.  The rocket will be brought back
on to the launch pad and a second launch attempt will take place "overnight
Monday or overnight Tuesday" depending on how the repair work and inspection
proceed, he said..   --SpaceDaily

**  Using radio telescopes on Earth and another optical scope in space, a
team of astrophysicists says it's detected a tiny galaxy that is the
farthest known object from Earth. California Institute of Technology
astronomer Richard Ellis says the galaxy is roughly 13 billion light-years
from Earth.  --Newsline

**    Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kalery and US astronaut Michael Foale
early Friday interrupted the first spacewalk to involve the entire crew of
the International Space Station (ISS), due to a fault in Kalery's suit,
Russian space officials said.  Foale and Kalery had managed to complete much
of the planned work when the temperature control in Kalery's suit went out
of order, forcing the cosmonaut to return to the station, said the head of
Russian mission control center's press service Valery Lyndin..  --SpaceDaily

**    Having marked its first anniversary on orbit, NASA's Solar Radiation
and Climate Experiment (Sorce) satellite has hit its stride. In concert with
other satellites, Sorce's observations of the sun's brightness are helping
researchers better understand climate change, climate prediction,
atmospheric ozone, the sunburn-causing ultraviolet-B radiation and space
weather.  Having accurate knowledge of the sun's brightness variations on
all time scales, from flares to centuries, at all wavelengths heating the
Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans is essential to understand, model and
predict impacts of the sun on Earth.  --SpaceDaily

/EX


In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to
AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive additional benefits.
Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office.

AMSAT has developed an on-line volunteer survey, designed to
identify the interests and skills of those who may be available to directly
help in efforts to develop the amateur satellite program. The survey is
designed to be completed and returned on-line, and takes only a few minutes
to fill out.  To request the survey, simply send an e-mail request
to:volunteer at AMSAT.org

73,
This weeks ANS Editor,
Lee McLamb, KU4OS, ku4os at AMSAT.org

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