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Amateur Rocket to Carry Ham Radio Payload to Space
n1ywb writes "An amateur rocket team this month will attempt to send a 21-foot-tall rocket carrying a ham radio avionics package into the fringes of space. The launch by the Civilian Space Xploration Team (CSXT) could occur as early as Monday, May 17. Some 20 months ago, the last CSXT try to reach space ended some three seconds after launch when the rocket's engine exploded. Avionics Team Leader Eric Knight, KB1EHE, says CSXT has since rebounded from that devastating blow with a newer, bigger vehicle. In terms of Amateur Radio, the GoFast rocket will transmit telemetry on the 33-cm amateur band and Amateur TV at 2.4 GHz using a high-quality color camera. The avionics also incorporate multiple global positioning system (GPS) systems to record the vehicle's precise location and flight path, redundant data acquisition and storage systems, and a variety of data sensors. Plans call for the solid-fuel rocket to zip upward from the desert floor and reach a speed of more than 4000 MPH in about 9 seconds. The suborbital vehicle will attain an altitude of 100 km or 62 statute miles--high enough to be considered 'space'--linger there for a couple of minutes then arc back to Earth some 26 miles down range. The whole thing will take somewhat less than a half-hour. If successful it would mark the first amateur rocket launch into space."
Ha! Maybe so, but after BIGCO turns all our computers into useless purchasing appliances, the only cool hobby left will be ham radio.
This post brought to you by an "old geezer".
What?
I don't know if there is any real scientific value to this flight or not. But shooting a hobbists rocket into space is just cool. These folks are following in the footsteps of Goddard and the rest of the rocket pioneers. Not a bad path at all, they might even find something new. I hope they have fun, and everything works.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Probably no parachute is a ground safety issue; if they deploy one at that altitude, there's no telling where the thing might land.
PS: That award offer will have been outstanding for a decade come a year from this coming fall.
PPS: Does anyone know why the CATS prize had (and Ansari X-Prize has) time limits?
Seastead this.
Then again, those three guys you jest at actually did a cool thing. They dreamt about something and they up and made it. And it wasn't a cheap and easy feat either.
In this cynical world where people crap on anything and everything someone else does...yet they themselves do nothing but sit and surf the web, it's refreshing to see someone actually BUILD something they think is cool, just for the sake of building it.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
That's fine. They're still fat though.
What a bunch of damn whiners. These are folks that are basically doing the Slashdot thing (learning, exploring, trying). Yes it amateur radio, but it is telemetry data and full motion color video. Hurray for them trying!
Really, it's just confusing to me that as a group, /. can still talk about how great pac-man was (with a straight face), and yet totally trash Amateur Radio.
I've had my license for ten years next month. I'm not on the air much anymore. Aside from emergency communications and such, the internet has ham radio beat hands down. Packet is STILL capped at 9600 bps as it was when I first got my ticket. Worldwide communications can take place easily over AIM, IRC and the like (no reliance on sunspots, can cuss and use encryption to your hearts content).
I think there is a great educational value in ham radio, but the kids (who are the new blood to keep the hobby going forward) don't seem to be gravitating towards it in the face of such competition.
Current hams, please feel free to correct me or debate the above.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Your point appears to me to be that Ham Radio is no longer relevant. et tu, Brute? (You're a ham.) =)
You just cited emergency communications, and said "aside from [that]". But "that" is one of the original justifications the government gave for creating the amateur radio system in the first place - to provide a mechanism for communications in times of disaster/crisis/where public safety is in jeapordy. This service to the public is still absolutely relevant.
Just ask the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, any hurricane, most earthquakes, (in USA, Mexico, or even worldwide), and every other natural disaster where the existing communications infrastructure has been compromised (or overwhelmed by users).
Not to mention - you'll see Amateur Radio operators helping out at every Cancer Walk/Run, March-of-Dimes event, (etc), and the list goes on.
Treating Amateur Radio as irrelevant because it created, fostered, and/or promoted the technologies we all now enjoy (Auto Patch => Cell Phone, FAX => Telephone-based FAX, RTTY/BAUDOT => ASCII, GPRS => GPS handhelds, 220Mhz comm => Business Band, Walkie Talkies + Repeaters => Police/Fire/Ambulance trunking radio systems.....) is disingenuous. Many of the very technologies that you've cited above were either created, fostered, or promoted to the masses by Amateur Radio.
Ham radio is not irrelevant. In fact, the exact opposite is true - it's actually way ahead of it's time!
Look for the Next Big Thing(tm) to start now, and first, in the Amateur Radio world.
- Mike S.
Licensed since 1978
Of course, the CSS Hunley was turned by a hand cranked screw and took 9 men in a 35 foot submarine to sink a wooden warship. A commited hobbiest could probably build a ship with the same capability with a crew of 1, an electric motor, and clock it in at 8 or 10 feet.
That being said, I doubt that if we re-launched sputnik today it would require the same size rocket. Engine efficiencies have increased by several orders of magnitude.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
I think your .sig says it all.
Just because something is incredibly cool doesn't mean we can't laugh at it.
Seriously though, how smart is it to A)make it bigger and hence different and B)put equipment on there that isn't needed to test it out.
Would it not be smarter to stick with on rocket and test and refine it to get it to work a couple of times then spend the money for the fancy broadcasting equipment...
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Actually Ham radio has been using TV, GPS data mapping, Packet and TCI/IP for many years.
Packet is like the Ham equivalent of the internet with its own email system, file downloads and chat all via the computer and over radio. I was doing IM on packet long before there was IM for the internet.
With the APRS system, people all over the world can trace the exact position of the rocket via GPS over radio in real time via a GUI with map overlays. It can also help locate the payload when it returns. Something a bug or hamster would have a hard time doing.....unless it was connected to Richard Gere.
Ham radio may sound kinda dorky but a lot of internet tech has come from hams and visa-versa.
Solid Engines = Cheap & Simple
Liquid Engines = Expensive & Complicated
But you've got the right point that this launch is especially significant in that there was no government funding for development or operations. So if it succeeds (as we all hope it will) then it'll be the first suborbital space launch without funding from any government in the history of the world.
Let's go make history!