STRaND-1 CubeSat Plasma Propulsion Test Firing

BBC TV have been filming at the Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) for an item on the STRaND-1 CubeSat mission for Stargazing Live.

Volunteers from the SSC and SSTL built STRaND-1 in their spare time.

Dr Chris Bridges working on STRaND

The STRaND-1 spacecraft will carry an Amateur Radio AX.25 packet radio payload on 437.575 MHz. It will be the UK’s first “PhoneSat” carrying a Nexus Android Smartphone that will run a number of Space Apps. In addition it will have both a Resistojet and a Pulsed Plasma Thruster (PPT) module.

One of the Space Apps that will run on the Smartphone was a spin-off of the work done by the AMSAT-UK FUNcube team, see
http://www.blackpepper.co.uk/posts/android-app-to-fly-on-strand-1-nanosat-mission/

Series 3 of BBC Stargazing Live will be broadcast January 8-10
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019h4g8/episodes/guide#b01pzbjb

Pictures taken during the BBC filming can be seen at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Surrey-Space-Centre/147861435274871

STRaND-1 on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nanosats

A detailed article on STRaND-1 appeared in a recent edition of the newsletter OSCAR News published by AMSAT-UK. It can be downloaded from http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf