Amateur Mars Satellite

Hobbyspacer writes "The German AMSAT-DL group recently announced formal approval of the Phase 5-A project to send a spacecraft to Mars in the 2007 or 2009 launch window. The spacecraft will use the same structure as AO-40 (formerly Phase 3-D) that was launched into earth orbit in the fall of 2000. Like AO-40 the Mars probe will piggyback on an Ariane 5 launch and use the same 400 N propulsion system. (I expect they will solve the problem that caused the engine misfiring that nearly destroyed the spacecraft.) The Phase 3-E project was also approved to follow up AO-40 and to test various techniques and technologies for the Mars mission. The document P5A-to-Mars!(712k pdf) describes the technical challenges and possible solutions for such an ambitious mission. AO-40 cost several million dollars and the Mars probe should cost considerably more, requiring they obtain funds outside of AMSAT members and the ham radio community. The long list, though, of spectacular contributions made by AMSAT to the development of micro sats and space communications gives the program high credibility."

Comments

Re:Contamination and porly funded projects

[Speedy8]

That may be true, but we have a track record of killing off the indigeounus life forms we meet, dating way back, even as far as invasion of the America's with disease.

Amateur != neophyte

[pongo000]

Seems like there's a lot of misconceptions about what the word "amateur" means. Amateur radio is named for its non-commercial nature (amateur as opposed to professional), and has nothing to do with level of competence. There are a great number of amateur radio operators who are experts in their fields of endeavor, and can hardly be considered "amateur" in terms of competence. Here's a list of some of the more famous amateurs. I see a Nobel Prize winner in physics on there, which I'd hardly consider "amateur."