Richard Richards KB5SIW Receiving SSTV on Space Shuttle mission STS-50
The 1992 space shuttle STS-50 mission was the first time that astronauts received an amateur radio fast-scan television video. It was sent by the ham radio club station W5RRR at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Narrated by the Commander and crew, this video contains footage selected by the astronauts, as well as their comments on the mission. Footage includes launch, onboard crew activities, and landing.
The amateur radio aspect of the mission gets a mention at 11:32 into this video.
Watch Space Shuttle STS-50 Columbia Spacelab USML pt1-2 Post Flight Press 1992 NASA
Watch Space Shuttle STS-50 Columbia Spacelab USML pt2-2 Post Flight Press 1992 NASA
The NanoSatisfi team is building an Arduino CubeSat ArduSat. On this satellite they plan to put up to 5 Arduino’s and plug in 50+ sensors into them as well as 2 optical and 1 IR camera.
Once the satellite is on orbit they aim to give access to the general public/citizen scientists to the payload (Arduinos, sensors and camera) to upload their own scientific experiments.
The team want to capture the attention of the DIY community, hackers and makers, amateur astronomers and in general those interested in space exploration and the next frontier.
Sensor wise they have so far magnetometers, O3 sensors, GPS , gyros, plasma sensors, photometer, thermometer, pressure sensor, space radiation (bitflip) sensor, Geiger counter and 2 optical and 1 IR camera etc. The idea is that people can rent scientific packages for a week, during the week they run their experiment the team will send data constantly back to them to analyze.
Imagine general public, including teachers having access to experiment platform in space for a couple of hundreds of dollar and they analyze data and engage students, friends etc., it could revolutionize the way people see space and perceive space exploration.
The team are also looking for feedback from people interested in the project and want to hear ideas on sensors and experiments!
Watch ArduSat Kickstarter Video
Watch Sensor prototype demo
Watch The DISCOVER Space Challenge & ArduSat: Invent an experiment and run it in space!
Watch SciStarter & Science Cheerleader Join ArduSat as Community Partner
NanoSatisfi was founded by Austrian-born Peter Platzer a former high-energy physicist (CERN), former Hedge Fund Quantitative Trader, avid HP-41 hacker and Arduino enthusiast, along with Belgian aerospace engineer Jeroen Cappaert intern at NASA Ames Research Center, Canadian aerospace engineer Joel Spark intern at EADS Astrium and Hungarian Reka Kovacs intern at NASA Ames Research Center working on alternative methods of public outreach for space science. The four founders met at the International Space University in Strasbourg and thought that they could do something to provide affordable, open-source space exploration for everyone.
Here is your chance to send a message into Space on board the F-1 Cubesat. Just follow this link http://fspace.edu.vn/?page_id=31 to add a message. Good Luck
SimpleSat Look Down is a free easy to use software app for satellite tracking.
Written by Tom Doyle W9KE it includes a satellite look down window that displays the view from the satellite looking down at the earth as it moves along.
It uses .NET 4 and runs on Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista and XP.
Tom has released this collection of videos that explain how SimpleSat Look Down works:
Watch SimpleSat Look Down – best viewed full screen HD
Watch SimpleSat Look Down – Setup – Best Viewed Full Screen HD
Watch SimpleSat Look Down – General Operation – Best Viewed Full Screen HD
Watch SimpleSat Look Down – Rotor Setup – best viewed full screen in HD
At the moment, the flight safety review is coming to an end. The FSpace team together with their partner NanoRacks LLC has satisfied the technical requirements and standards set by the launch vehicle provider.
If everything goes according to plan, the F-1 CubeSat will be delivered to Japan by the end of June. Then along with four other CubeSats (RAIKO, WE-WISH, FITSAT-1 and TechEdSat) F-1 will be loaded onboard HTV-3 “Kounotori” transfer vehicle for integration with the JAXA HII-B launch vehicle.
F-1 plans to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 21 from Tanegashima, Japan, then in September the Japanese astronaut and radio amateur Akihiko Hoshide KE5DNI should deploy it into space from the ISS using the Kibo robot arm.
It carries two Yaesu VX-3R transceivers using 145.980 and 437.485 MHz.
The FSpace team are offering the public a chance to send their name/callsign and a message into space onboard the F-1 CubeSat. You will also be presented with a certificate! See this link http://fspace.edu.vn/?page_id=31
It’s an informal conclusion, of course. But the story of Surrey’s plan to dock CubeSats using Microsoft’s Kinect technology is certainly making the rounds, appearing in traditional places like Satnews and Flightglobal, as well as consumer electronic sources such as Gizmagodo and general news sites like the BBC.
The Kinect-enabled STRaND-2 is the sister craft to the previously announced STRaND-1, which uses smartphone tech.
Developing technology that could be used to separately launch the parts of a much larger craft that would be configured on orbit might bring those larger craft, and more ambitious goals, within reach of the CubeSat community.
It’s been a while since any news was forthcoming, but Cornell has also proposed using CubeSats to test reconfigurable technology that uses “flux-pinning” (video) to achieve similar goals.
AMSAT-UK 
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