[jamsat-news:3468] [ans] ANS-301.01 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin - AMSAT-NA Announces GOLF CubeSat Program

[JoAnne K9JKM]

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL BULLETIN
ANS-301.01

In this Special Bulletin:

* AMSAT-NA Announces GOLF CubeSat Program

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-301.01
ANS-301 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin 301.01
 From AMSAT SYMPOSIUM, RENO, NV
DATE October 28, 2017
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-301.01

At the AMSAT-NA Annual General Meeting in Reno, NV, AMSAT-NA President
Joe Spier, K6WAO, announced the next phase of AMSAT’s CubeSat program:
GOLF. GOLF, an acronym for “Greater Orbit, Larger Footprint,” is a
crucial step towards fulfilling AMSAT’s strategic goals involving high
altitude, wide access satellite missions.

As an initial step in the GOLF program, the AMSAT-NA Board of
Directors approved the submission of a NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative
proposal for the GOLF-T satellite project. The GOLF-T project will
serve as a rapidly deployable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) testbed for
technologies necessary for a successful CubeSat mission to a wide
variety of orbits, including LEO, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO),
Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), or beyond.

AMSAT-NA Vice-President Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, said “The
GOLF-T project tees off the next phase of our CubeSat program. GOLF-T
provides AMSAT hardware and knowledge for Attitude Determination and
Control (ADAC) capability and the opportunity to develop a 3U
spaceframe with deployable solar panels that can be used in LEO or HEO
missions, two of the major systems required in future GOLF and HEO
missions.”

In addition, GOLF-T provides the opportunity for rapid deployment and
on orbit testing of the AMSAT’s Advanced Satellite Communications and
Exploration of New Technology (ASCENT )program’s technology, including
radiation tolerant transponder and Integrated Housekeeping Unit (IHU)
technologies that will lead the way for low cost commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS) systems that can function in the MEO and HEO
radiation environments. GOLF-T will also provide for the development
of “Five and Dime” Field-Programmable Gate Array Software Defined
Radio (FPGA SDR) transponders for use on a variety of missions and
orbits.

[ANS thanks the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors and our Engineering Team
  for the above information]

/EX

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