Space satellites from the world´s garage-the story of AMSAT

AMSAT is a worldwide group of Amateur Radio Operators (Hams) who share an active interest in building, launching and then communicating with each other through non-commercial Amateur Radio satellites. By any measure, AMSAT´s track record has been impressive. Since its founding 25 years ago, AMSAT has used predominantly volunteer labor and donated resources to design, construct, and, with the added assistance of international government and commercial agencies, successfully launch, over 30 Amateur Radio satellites into Earth orbit. Today, almost 20 of these satellites are operational. The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (as AMSAT is officially known) was formed in 1969 as a not-for-profit, educational organization chartered in the District of Columbia. Its aim is to foster Amateur Radio´s participation in space research and communication. Since the very first OSCAR satellites (OSCAR stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) were launched in the early 1960s, AMSAT´s international volunteers, often working quite literally in their basements and garages, have pioneered a wide variety of new communications technologies that are now taken for granted in the world´s satellite marketplace. These breakthroughs have included some of the very first satellite voice transponders as well as highly advanced digital “store-and-forward” messaging transponder techniques. This paper will focus on some of the creative technical and managerial techniques that AMSAT has used to work with donated resources and international teams of volunteer talent to design, build and launch commercial grade communications satellites in a not-for-profit environment