SEDSAT-2 Communications Design Notes 20080329
From SEDSWiki
Communications subsystem, funding drive
Each subsystem is responsible for financing the costs of their own subsystem. It is up to us to arrange this for communications, so basically the two funding sources are:
- pay for everything ourselves
- approach an external source (company/government/international space organisation/international space organisation) for financial assistance with some/part/all of the costs
The second option is more attractive, from my point of view. Do you agree?
We need to think how we can get funding. Organizations/individuals won't give us money for nothing, they will want something in return for any of their generosity. That "something in return" could be publicity for the organization, it could be an association with us and what we're doing, it could be an opportunity for them to cultivate favorable relationships between ourselves and them (so that as we move into jobs, we may end up sending some business their way), or it could be many other things.
We need to think about what we can offer to an organization, then find out which organizations might be interested in what we can offer, and then try a targeted approach to a carefully selected set of these organizations.
Task for this week
A task for this week: think of what we (either SEDSAT-2 as a whole, or just the communication team) can offer to an organization, then find five organizations we could approach for financial assistance.
What can we offer?
What can we offer to an organization, in return for funding?
One possibility is the association of a sponsoring organization with ourselves (the SEDSAT-2 team). Think about it: technically what we are doing isn't radically new (although it does have some interesting enhancements over most other cubesats), but what is novel, what is exciting and what is "cool" about it is that we're normal people but we're reaching far beyond our daily lives and geographical boundaries, and doing something really challenging and memorable whilst completely self-motivated and self-disciplined. And we're not doing this because we're paid to do it, or because we have lots of spare time (none of us do!), or because it is part of a course we took for university, we're doing it because we want to, because we can, and because we want to explore.
I think this is a powerful marketing asset. Many companies (from big to small) try and associate themselves with this ethic, for example, Pepsi have the slogan "Live life to the max", Nike have "Just Do It". These companies want to associate their product with the same attributes you could apply to the SEDSAT-2 team. Perhaps they would be interested in providing us some funding in return for us wearing SEDSAT-2 T-shirts (which display their product logo on it) at team events - IAC'08/SEDSIC/satellite launch/press events etc... in order to further build their brand.
But these are just two examples! Think of some more! And there may be other things we as a team could offer a potential sponsor, see if you can think what they are.
