Nanosatellites

24 II-4aAMSAT¹

Andrew Barron (ZL3DW)

Christchurch, New Zealand

24.1 Introduction

AMSAT was founded in 1969 by radio amateurs working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other “radio hams” from the Baltimore–Washington DC region. Their aim was to continue the efforts begun by Project OSCAR (Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio), which had already built four successful amateur radio satellites. The first AMSAT project was to coordinate the launch of Australis-OSCAR 5, constructed by students at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

AMSAT has now become a worldwide group of amateur radio operators who share an active interest in building, launching, and then communicating with each other through amateur radio satellites. By any measure, AMSAT's track record has been impressive. Since its founding 50 years ago, AMSAT has used predominantly volunteer labor and has donated resources to design, construct, and, with the assistance of international government and commercial agencies, successfully launch, more than 60 amateur radio satellites into Earth orbit. There are now AMSAT groups in 19 countries. Each AMSAT group uses the AMSAT name followed by a suffix indicating the group's country or region. For example, AMSAT-NA is the North American group, AMSAT-DL is the German group, AMSAT-UK is self-explanatory, and AMSAT-ZL is the New Zealand AMSAT group [1].

It is important to remember that AMSAT is a volunteer organization with an amazing track record. Without AMSAT and the ...