BA1. There are two reasons for building this test transmitter. First, it helps to have an initial "smoke test" for the Ground Sphere Ground Station. What this means is that when someone assembles a copy of the Ground Sphere hardware, they should be able to easily test it to make sure that nothing major is wrong. Second, there are very few other 915 MHz satellites in orbit that are useful for testing the Ground Sphere Ground Station at the time of this project's inception. Having a test apparatus like this allows us to simulate satellite reception through terrestrial tests and possibly even High Altitude Balloon launches.
BA2. The Ground Sphere Ground Station is for SkyCube backers, students, teachers, scouting troops, space enthusiasts, and anyone who wishes to directly participate in the SkyCube mission. Therefore, this test transmitter is intended for the same audience.
BA3. Ground Sphere Ground Station operators will use the test transmitter to:
BA4. The designs will be open so that anyone, without necessarily a technical education in amateur radio or satellite operations, would be able to build and operate a Ground Sphere Test Transmitter.
TA1a. The test transmitter needs to:
TA1b. In the future, the project (or related projects) may need to:
TA2. To maintain compatibility with other projects, the system should:
PA1. As an open source hardware kit, the long term objective is to promote and sell as many ground station kits to as large of an audience (schools, scouting troops, makerspaces, space enthusiasts, etc) as possible. However, the narrow focus on supporting SkyCube operations with the Ground Sphere may limit the number of kits which will be sold for this specific ground station, especially since the SkyCube is going to be on orbit for a very limited period of time. The sales lifetime of this specific kit (and in turn the number of kits we will want to sell) will depend on how many other satellites there are to observe in the same frequency range as the SkyCube.
PA2. The materials cost should be kept under $75 to limit the retail cost of any kit versions.
PA3. The timeline for this project is dictated by the SkyCube launch and deployment timeline. SkyCube is currently scheduled was launched in January 2014, with deployment from the ISS in Q1 or Q2 of 2014. Southern Stars has stated they would be comfortable with a February 2014 delivery date for the kits.
PA4. TBD