Pat made clear that all amateurs and students are welcome to participate in SimSat, but that during his first engineering test flights, his primary efforts will be focused on developing the spacecraft bus, integrating the flight operations teams and learning the ropes of payload recovery. Some new announcements are in order as well. One of the many interesting subsystems of the spacecraft bus is that of antenna design.
Several factors constrain the design of an antenna.
SimSat transmitter power is limited by the weight of the batteries and therefore efficient antennas are required. As the balloon-powered satellite rises there is a natural rotation imparted on the system. Thus the antennas should contribute minimal fading, be robust yet lightweight, simple in construction and reasonably efficient. A SimSat capsule shape is a cube of about a foot on each side. An antenna that is a foot in length would be far more manageable than one that is three feet in length.