Lessons Learned at LEO: Implications for Future AMSAT-NA Projects

摘要

AMSAT-NA has a long, mostly successful tradition of designing, building and flyingLEO spacecraft, beginning in 1970 with the launch of OSCAR 5, and continuing throughto the construction and deployment of Suitsat-1 in 2006. Along the way, the organizationhas learned many important, and sometimes painful, lessons about the business ofspaceflight. This paper will attempt to record some of the author’s observations,experiences and conclusions based primarily on experiences with AO-7, AO-16, and AO-51, but also other satellites in the amateur service. It is the author’s desire that this paperalso serve as a beginning to a more formal codification of lessons learned, and documentAMSAT’s institutional knowledge for incorporation into future spacecraft and missions.Corrections, clarifications, and comments are of course welcome.