Some details of Team Frednet's communication thoughts. | Communications Workgroup | Forum

For those unaware, Team Frednet is an entrant in Google's lunar lander X prize who have, to their great credit, decided to make their entry open source (they are the only team to have done so).

This page on their Wiki has an overview of their communication thoughts – they haven't designed their final system yet but they have made some educated guesses as to how it will look.  This could be good inspirational material for those who want to do similar work on our systems.

This article in the Open Space Exploration Journal (a blog that posts quite rarely but which we still may want to try to get in once we're a little more organised) says some more about their various options and plans.  Interestingly, it notes a few groups with Big Dishes who have made various generous offers of assistance.  We may be able to get similar offers later down the road, although we should not rely on this hapenning.

Agreed, this is lacking in detail, but at the moment we are even more lacking – good general considerations and rough planning like they have done would at least make it look like we have some hope of getting a working communication system designed later.

I'm surprised we have overlooked Frednet so much, actually, they should definitely be a high priority candidate for "Friend of CSTART" status, right up there with Copenhagen Suborbitals and Open Luna Foundation.  We should be watching relevant workgroups of theirs (communications and propulsion) very closely.