IZIHAMBO-1

This is a draft Phase A spacecraft proposal I made for a possible pitch to the South African government. It started through a connection with an anesthesiologist who had previously negotiated with them, alongside a gynecologist, for access to the Overberg missile launch site. That is a story in itself.

I designed the proposal hoping he could pitch it, but our plans for the company eventually diverged. He wanted to focus on a launch vehicle, and I wanted to focus on a satellite, so I moved on from the project.

You’ll see figures marked “Cost Estimate Guess” where I hadn’t obtained a vendor quote and used an educated estimate instead. I also got maybe a little too excited putting it together and ended up designing every page in Photoshop.

Also, I should make it clear that this is not a finished concept. For example, areas such as the mass budget are way too thin for comfort. If I ever revisited this project, I’d want to substantially revise the architecture, especially after finding out from ExoTerra that they no longer manufacture those particular solar arrays.