Hi all,
What’s happening? When will I get my kit? When will my satellite rocket launch take place?
What’s happening?
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Last week John and Martin were in the US at SpaceCom, Houston and then visited AmbaSat-1’s rocket launch provider – Interorbital Systems (IOS) – in Mojave, California. It was great to meet everyone at IOS and we had an excellent meeting which resolved a lot of questions related to the rocket launch. We have some exciting news and a joint IOS/AmbaSat press release which will be coming out very soon.
As a result of the IOS meeting, we can now proceed with the AmbaSat-1 v2 design. That means that we can commit to assembly of the main satellite board parts. We are in contact with Andy at Mowden and discussing the schedule for this.
With regards to the satellite sensors: They are all complete except for Sensor 8 (the GPS sensor) where we are waiting on design modifications. However, as Sensor 8 will not be launched into low Earth orbit, it’s not holding up plans for the rocket launch or delivery.
A few weeks back we placed the order for the space-grade solar panels and last week received 1000+ solar panels. Yes! Picture attached.
That leaves packaging to sort out and then we are getting close to dispatch.
When will I get my kit?
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We obviously want to get the kits dispatched to all backers as soon as possible. Once we have the schedule from Mowden (see above) we can start to put together a delivery plan. However, we must ship a fully tested satellite kit and it’s important that we get this stage right so that you get a fully tested and working pack of parts to assemble.
What does this mean realistically as far as a delivery date? We would reluctantly say it will probably not be this side of Christmas. We know this is not great news. However, for those that really would like to make a start in December, it’s possible that we can dispatch an ‘untested’ AmbaSat-1 base satellite PCB with assembly instructions. This would be on the understanding that it is something to get familiar with until we are able to dispatch the full kit. If there is a big demand for this then we will look at what can be done. There would be a small cost in delivering this.
Please email Jenny (jenny@ambasat.com) if you would be interested in the AmbaSat-1 base satellite PCB only.
When will my satellite rocket launch take place?
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As mentioned, we had a great meeting with Randa and the rest of the team at IOS. These guys are solution-driven and during our meeting and discussions they were able to come up with solid answers to our questions regarding the rocket launch. We will be issuing a joint press release very soon with further details.
Due to the 1 year+ licence timescales required by the UK Space Agency, we have registered a US company and with the help of our US partner, will be applying for a US launch licence. We’ll have further details on this shortly but there is a possibility that the rocket launch date will roll over to Q2 of 2020.
Other news
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We are currently working to build a new Forum and will also shortly be launching the AmbaSat Blog where future updates will get posted first.
As ever, thank you all for your continued support.
The AmbaSat Team.
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