"Lone Star," A Small Communication Satellite for Texas

The Texas State Legislature has passed a bill recommending thal the state examine the feasibility of developing a "home grown" satellite/or communications applications. Such a satellite would be built in Texas by a state, industry. and university consortium with the inten.t thai it be launched by a Texas built launch vehicle. This paper reports on a quick look design and trade..o/f study that was performed to determine the characteristics and possible configurations that such a small satellite system would have. The communications link b~t is discussed and used to define the commumcations payload that would be carried by the satellite. Mission constrabus and orbital options are Considered. as well as launch vehicle peifonnant:e to the possible working orbits. A baseline spacecraft is presented and the principal subsystems are discussed.