Author: SM0TGU

From ANS-299:

At the Annual General Meeting of AMSAT members, held as part of the AMSAT Symposium in Phoenix, Ariz. last weekend, newly elected AMSAT President Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, outlined some future directions for the organization.

Noting that membership in organizations and voluntary associations of all types has been declining across the board, in all areas of society, Glasbrenner suggested a two-pronged approach.

First, reduce the cost per member. AMSAT has already made major steps in that direction, by closing the office and changing to an all-volunteer administration, and also by changing the AMSAT Journal from print to a digital publication. The organization should seek more opportunities to economize.

Second, increase membership by creating a strategy to actively seek and invite new hams. The Board has just approved a free student membership to bring young hams into the organization. Reinstating a College Activity Night on the satellites, an AMSAT Youth Net, and publicizing youth satellite activities are priorities. Another possibility might be a two-tiered membership structure with a low-fee introductory membership.

Glasbrenner also noted that government budget cuts have caused NASA to eliminate the CubeSat Launch Initiative program (CSLI), which provided free launch opportunities to educational projects. AMSAT has benefited from CSLI, but has also purchased commercial launches in the past. He indicated that AMSAT should not wait to see if CSLI is reinstated or replaced with a similar program, but that the organization should move forward to fund commercial launches for GOLF-Tee and Fox Plus satellites that are nearing readiness in coming months.

Another challenge facing AMSAT is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to operate in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). While orbital debris regulations forbid launches to higher orbits without meeting stringent technical requirements for deorbiting, reentry devices are largely unavailable or unproven. The GOLF program is meant to address this, but launches to higher orbits are also difficult to find. Future rules may mandate propulsion for collision avoidance in LEO.

A strategy to meet these orbital challenges is to focus on developing amateur radio payloads that can fly on other satellites. The Italian Greencube satellite, IO-117, was an example. To take advantage of these opportunities, AMSAT engineers must focus on developing payloads as a series, rather than as single projects, so that units are “on the shelf” and available on short notice. The SDR Gen2 transverter board – an updated version of the units flown on HuskySat and MESAT1 – is a major step in this direction, as is the updated PacSat board under development. The GOLF and Fox Plus programs are also being crafted to create satellites in a series with iterative improvements and an up-tempo launch cadence.

Finally, Glasbrenner called for strengthening international collaboration with other AMSAT organizations around the world, as well as establishing mechanisms for strategic planning at the Board of Directors level. His address was received enthusiastically by those in attendance.

[ANS thanks Mark Johns, KØJM, News Service Senior Editor, for the above information.]

Three Japanese CubeSats were deployed from the ISS using the Japanese J-SSOD on October 10, 2025. Two of the satlelites transmit in the amateur radio bands.

e-kagaku-1
CW, DigiTalker, 1.2kbps AFSK, 9.6kbps GMSK  145.840MHz
https://ekagaku-sat.net/   This web site is in Japanese
https://iaru.amsat-uk.org/finished_detail.php?serialnum=888

BOTAN
APRS 145.825MHz
Digital 437.375MHz
https://sites.google.com/p.chibakoudai.jp/gardens-04/
https://iaru.amsat-uk.org/finished_detail.php?serialnum=938

[ANS thanks JAXA and Masahiro Arai, JN1GKZ, for the above information]

Thanks to ANS and AMSAT-DL for this info:

On September 19, 2025, the futureGEO workshop took place under the radome of the Bochum Observatory. Organized by AMSAT-DL with the support of ESA, the event brought together international experts, representatives of amateur radio organizations and dedicated radio amateurs who had previously declared their active participation in an appeal and submitted corresponding proposals. In the spring, AMSAT-DL had invited potential interested parties as part of an RFEI. The aim was to build on the experience gained with QO-100 and to jointly define the first concrete mission ideas for a future amateur radio payload in geostationary orbit.

The workshop was held as a hybrid event. The group was made up of one half who were present on site and the other half who took part online via ZOOM. Andrew Glasbrenner, K04MA, AMSAT VP – Operations represented AMSAT-USA at the meeting.

The purpose of the workshop was to collect, cluster and prioritize ideas:

• Mission & Services – Which communication services and experiments should a new GEO payload enable?
• Payload & antennas – What technical solutions are conceivable?
• Ground station & operation – How can control and operation be organized?
• User segment – Who should have access and how?

In a concluding reflection among the participants, it became clear how much QO-100 has revitalized and enriched the amateur radio community:

• Affordable entry into microwave communication with low-cost SDRs and LNBs.
• Development of open source software such as DVB-S2 encoders and decoders.
• Educational projects from schools to schools contacts with Antarctica and other events.

The participants hope that radio amateurs can be even more involved in the construction of the hardware of a futureGEO with appropriate personal contribution, transparency and participation than was possible with QO-100 due to NDAs with the manufacturers and owners of the parent satellite.

The next steps are clear: The mission ideas developed in the workshop will be further concretized and should be available by the end of 2025 in the form of 1-3 consolidated mission concepts that are both technically exciting and attractive to the international amateur radio community and must also be technically feasible.

Read the entire story at https://amsat-dl.org/en/review-futuregeo-workshop-2025-in-bochum/ .

[ANS thanks AMSAT-DL for the above information.]