Navy Education Through Amateur Satellite Development

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is developing a small satellite for digital store-and-forward communication using spread spectrum techniques. NPS is looking toward the amateur radio community in an effort to utilize costeffective engineering and proven means of radio message relay. This cooperative initiative between NPS and the amateur radio community provides numerous benefits for the education of NPS officer students. The spacecraft will provide for amateur radio enthusiasts a new space communication mode utilizing spread spectrum modulation for packet radio. It also offers a means of evaluating spread spectrum in the increasingly congested frequency bands.