Steve Greenland of Clyde Space receives the AMSAT-UK FUNcube-2 boards that will be incorporated into UKube-1

On Friday, October 19, after some final testing and characterisation checks completed at the facilities of ISIS BV in Delft, AMSAT-UK handed over the set of three PCBs that form the FUNcube-2 subsystem on the UKube-1 spacecraft to Clyde Space Ltd in Glasgow. Clyde Space are leading the development and assembly of this CubeSat project for the UK Space Agency.

The PCBs were taken to Glasgow in a Pelicase by Graham Shirville G3VZV who handed them to Steve Greenland Systems Engineer at Clyde Space.

Flight and Engineering Models of FUNcube-1 with FUNcube-2 boards

The three PCB’s comprise:
• CCT Board – Command, control and telemetry, interfaces via I2C with the antenna deployment system and the main OBC (On-Board Computer).
• RF Board – Command receiver, telemetry transmitter and linear transponder of the FUNcube satellite educational payload also includes telemetry sensors.
• PA Board – 400 mW VHF amplifier and sensors.

FUNcube-2 on UKube-1 will provide a 435/145 MHz (U/V) linear transponder for amateur radio SSB/CW communications and telemetry for school students around the world.

The UKube-1 spacecraft is expected to be launched on a Soyuz-2 launcher from Baikonur in Kazakhstan in March 2013. UKube-1 is a demonstration CubeSat mission designed to provide a platform for up to three technology demonstrator payloads. In addition to these payloads the satellite will incorporate innovative attitude determination and control systems, deployable arrays, FPGA on board mission controllers.

There will be four communications systems:
• A U/V transceiver from ISIS BV, using either 1k2 or 9k6 BPSK for downlinks.
• A FUNcube compatible U/V transponder and telemetry transmitter provided by AMSAT-UK for educational outreach, amateur transponder operation and redundant telecommand.
• A 1 watt S Band transmitter from Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, for high data rate mission data downlinking using up to 1 Mbps QPSK or OQPSK modulation.
• myPocketQub 442 SuperSprite AU on UHF with 11mW output using spread spectrum with 100 kHz bandwidth.

These frequencies have been coordination by the IARU Satellite Panel:
• 1k2 or 9k6 BPSK Telemetry downlink 145.840 MHz
• FUNcube-2 1k2 BPSK Telemetry downlink 145.915 MHz
• FUNcube-2 Transponder SSB/CW uplink 435.080 – 435.060 MHz and downlink 145.930 -145.950 MHz
• S Band downlink 2401.0 MHz
• myPocketQub 437.425-437.525 MHz

More information is available at http://www.ukspaceagency.bis.gov.uk/21973.aspx

Artists impression of UKube-1 in orbit – Credit Clyde Space