"Lone Star," A Small Communication Satellite for Texas

The Texas State Legislature has passed a bill recommending that the state examine the feasibility of developing a "home grown" satellite for communications applications. Such a satellite would be built in Texas by a state, industry and university consortium with the intent that it be launched by a Texas built launch vehicle. This paper reports on a quick look design and trade-off study that was performed to determine the characteristics and possible configurations that such a small satellite system would have. The communications link budget is discussed and used to define the communications payload that would be carried by the satellite. Mission constraints and orbital options are considered, as well as launch vehicle performance to the possible working orbits. A baseline spacecraft is presented and the principal subsystems are discussed.