Monthly Archives: December 2011

Dec 31 2011

ARISSat-1 altitude is rapidly decreasing

Sergey Samburov RV3DR with ARISSat-1

Sergey Samburov RV3DR with ARISSat-1

The altitude of the amateur radio satellite ARISSat-1 (145.950 MHz FM) continues to decline rapidly.

On Tuesday, Dec 27, 2011,  ARISSat-1 was losing about 4.1 km (~2.5 miles) a day in altitude, by Friday, Dec 30, 2011 the decay was 5.9 km (3.6 miles) per day. This rate will continue to increase over the next days and ultimately result in the satellite burning up in the atmosphere.

Telemetry reports haven’t shown a large increase in temperatures yet, please collect and report these values during each illumination period. There have been a number of people that continue to update their calculations on when the satellite will re-enter, now expected to be sometime this week.

The fall rate dh/dt is  increasing dramatically. Be sure to do daily updates of the ARISSat-1/RadioSkaf-B Keps from Celestrak.com. The ARISSat-1 orbit changes daily while the satellite continues to lose altitude.

Roland, PY4ZBZ from Brazil has updated graphs of height and fall rate on his Web site http://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/arissat.htm#r

ARISSat-1 Getting Hotter http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/12/30/arissat-1-getting-hotter/

AMSAT News Service (ANS) http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

Dec 31 2011

Smart Phone Satellite Presentation Video

In the United Kingdom volunteers from SSTL and SSC are using their own, free time to develop STRaND-1 a CubeSat that will carry a Smart Phone.

However Smart Phone satellites aren’t only being developed in the UK, the United States is developing one as well. Radio amateur Mike Safyan KJ6MVL gave a presentation on the US PhoneSat to the 2011 TAPR Digital Communications Conference and thanks to ARVN a video is now available.

A PhoneSat Really? Use an off the shelf smart phone as the guts of a satellite? Yep, that’s what radio amateur Mike Safyan KJ6MVL is doing over at NASA. He described the project in his talk at the 2011 ARRL/TAPR DCC in Baltimore.

Of course, todays phones have way more computer power than typical satellites, updated phones are released like every 5 minutes, and they’re dirt cheap (relatively). But can they hold up and do the job in the rigors of space? So far, Mike’s sent his phone up on a near space balloon and a small rocket, and yes, it works. A full CubeSat launch is next for Mike and crew.

Watch 2011 DCC – PhoneSat

Make: magazine – PhoneSat Aims to Send a Cellphone into Space (video)
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/10/phonesat-aims-to-send-a-cellphone-into-space-video.html

A six page article on UK PhoneSat STRaND-1 appeared in the Spring issue of the AMSAT-UK publication OSCAR News available for download at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf

UK Smartphone CubeSat STRaND-1 http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/09/07/uk-smartphone-cubesat-strand-1/

Amateur Radio Video News (ARVN) http://www.arvn.tv/

Dec 30 2011

ARISSat-1 Getting Hotter

Sergey Samburov RV3DR with ARISSat-1

Sergey Samburov RV3DR with ARISSat-1

Ken W7KKE reports that ARISSat-1 is heating up as it starts to enter the Earth’s atmosphere, it can still be heard on 145.950 MHz FM but not for much longer.

On the AMSAT bulletin board he writes:

At 2055Z today [Friday] had a 77 deg pass. Highest temp was the -Z PPT 6 panel temp at 88 C. Yesteday it was temp was 74 C.  RF temp was 57 C which is one degree cooler than observed yesterday.

Keps were only 0.7 days old, but still had to manually chase the signal when it was near predicted TCA.

Ken Eaton GW1FKY posted this report on Friday evening:

Pleased to report lots of activity on the last two passes of ARISSat-1 over here in Europe today  (Friday)

Some calls at 1507 hrs  PD0RKC,  heard you and you were 5 X  8 but dropped to 5 X 5 rather quickly. At 1639 hrs heard ON4GP calling and then in contact with DG1ER, you were  both 5X7 prior to the satellite switching off in eclipse.

Nice to report the activity as we approach the end on the year and an era for ARISSat-1.

You can get orbital predictions times by selecting ARISSat-1 on the online prediction tool at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/

A graph showing the descent of ARISSat-1 can be seen at http://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/arissat.htm#r

ARISSat-1 . . A Fun HAM Satellite! http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/12/25/arissat-1-a-fun-ham-satellite/

AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, which is full of Amateur Satellite information.
Free sample issue at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf Join online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK

Dec 30 2011

OSCAR-11 Report December 2011

Oscar 11 being built

Oscar 11

Clive Wallis G3CWV provides an update on the UK Amateur Radio satellite Oscar 11 which has completed nearly 28 years in orbit.

This report covers the period from September  1 to December 28 2011.

The satellite has continued to operate in a very predictable way since the last report, and no changes have been observed. During this time the satellite has been heard reliably during its ten-day transmission periods. Excellent signals have been reported from stations located around the world, and good copy obtained from decoded telemetry frames.

The easiest way to check whether OSCAR-11 is operational is to look at the General Satellite Status website http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php . You can also calculate the operating schedule from the last switch-off time, which was December 28, 2011 at 15:00 UTC (approx), using 10.35 days off followed by 10.35 days on.

Reception reports have been received from Gustavo LW2DTZ, Bob KI0G, Rolf HB9TSO and Francesco IT9JRU.  Many thanks to all and those who posted to the status website.

The satellite is currently in eclipse during all evening passes over the UK, resulting in lower signal strengths at these times.  Owing to the gradual precession of the orbit, the season for eclipses of the evening passes is longer this year compared with the winter last year.

The on-board clock continues to gain, 28 seconds during the current reporting period, and 112 seconds since regular transmissions were resumed at the end of August 2010. There is however a large accumulated error of 308.54303 days slow. This was caused mainly by the clock stopping during eclipses, when there was also an unknown drain on the power supply. The units of the least significant digit correspond approximately to seconds (0.86 seconds actually).

The VHF beacon frequency is 145.826 MHz.  AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry. The satellite is operating in the default mode, with a cycle time of 20.7 days. 10.35 days on followed by 10.35 days off.

At the present time, while OSCAR-11 is operating in a predictable way, I no longer need direct reports or files by e-mail. However, could all listeners continue to enter their reports on the general satellite status website. This is a very convenient and easy to use facility, which shows the
current status of all the amateur satellites, and is of use to everyone. Reports around the expected times of switch-on and switch-off are of special interest, especially for times 12:00 – 18:00 and 22:00 – 07:00 UTC, when the satellite is out-of-range in the UK . The URL is http://oscar.dcarr.org/index.php

A longer version of this report report is available on my website, and new listeners to OSCAR-11 should read this for further information. The URL is http://www.g3cwv.co.uk/oscar11.htm
This page contains a links to the longer report, a short audio clip to help you identify the satellite and a file of the last telemetry received. The website also contains an archive of news & telemetry data which is updated from time to time, and details about using a soundcard or hardware demodulators for data capture. There is also software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry.

If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network, please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT157.CWV, to prevent duplication.

73 Clive G3CWV xxxxx@amsat.org (please replace the x’s by g3cwv)

AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, which is full of Amateur Satellite information. Free sample issue at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf Join online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK

Dec 30 2011

Hackers Plan Space Satellites

A CubeSat in Space

A CubeSat in Space

The BBC report that Hackers plan to put their own communication satellites into orbit. The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

Used together in a global network, these stations would be able to pinpoint satellites at any given time, while also making it easier and more reliable for fast-moving satellites to send data back to earth. “It’s kind of a reverse GPS,” Armin Bauer, said.

“GPS uses satellites to calculate where we are, and this tells us where the satellites are. We would use GPS co-ordinates but also improve on them by using fixed sites in precisely-known locations.”

Armin Bauer, said the team would have three prototype ground stations in place in the first half of 2012, and hoped to give away some working models at the next Chaos Communication Congress in a year’s time.

Read the full BBC story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16367042

Building a Distrubuted Satellite Ground Station Network – A Call To Arms
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/Fahrplan/events/4699.en.html

Hackerspace Global Grid http://shackspace.de/wiki/doku.php?id=project:hgg

London Hackspace work on HackSat1 http://www.uk.amsat.org/2482

AMSAT-DL presentation to the Chaos Communication Camp in August
http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/12/17/from-oscar-1-to-mars-and-beyond/

Hackers and Makers in AMSAT-UK are building the amateur radio satellite FUNcube.
AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, which is full of Amateur Satellite information.
Free sample issue at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf
Join online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK

Dec 27 2011

BBC Interview with Professor Colin Pillinger

Professor Pillinger at AMSAT-UK Colloquium - Credit GM8ARV

Professor Colin Pillinger at the AMSAT-UK Colloquium. Picture credit: David Taylor GM8ARV

On Dec. 27, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an interview with Professor Colin Pillinger about the UK Mars exploration mission Beagle 2 which landed on the Red Planet on Christmas Day 2003. An MP3 of the interview is now available.

Eight years ago, planetary scientist Colin Pillinger was still hopeful that the Beagle 2 Lander that he had spent years designing, building and publicising (with the help of Blur and Damien Hirst) might yet be found somewhere on the surface of Mars. But, as more time passed, it became clear that The Beagle 2 Lander would be forever lost in space. Jim al -Khalili talks to Colin Pillinger about studying moon rock and meteorites from Mars whilst running a successful dairy farm; broken space dreams and why, even if a space project fails, useful scientific lessons can still be learned.

During the interview Colin Pillinger says that the biggest lesson learnt was not having had a radio beacon active during the decent phase and therefore not knowing what finally happened.

The interview was first broadacst on BBC Radio 4, at 9:00AM Tuesday, Dec 27, 2011 and a podcast of the show ‘The Life Scientific’ can now be heard at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/tls/tls_20111227-0930a.mp3

Beagle 2 : The UK led exploration of Mars http://www.beagle2.com/

The 2012 AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium will be held September 14-16
http://www.uk.amsat.org/colloquium/twelve/

AMSAT-UK publishes a colour A4 newsletter, OSCAR News, which is full of Amateur Satellite information.
Free sample issue at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf
Join online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK