Monthly Archives: February 2013

Feb 28 2013

IARU Announces Frequencies for Korean Ham Radio CubeSat OSSI

Hojun Song DS1SBO and the NovaNano FlyMate deployer

Hojun Song DS1SBO and the NovaNano FlyMate deployer

The IARU amateur radio satellite frequency coordination panel has announced the frequencies for the OSSI-1 CubeSat developed by Hojun Song DS1SBO.

Artist and radio amateur Hojun Song DS1SBO has spent 7 years developing his Open Source Satellite Initiative satellite OSSI-1. He has designed and developed it from scratch using readily available components rather than expensive space qualified hardware. It has a beacon in the 145 MHz band, a data communications transceiver in the 435 MHz band and carries a 44 watt LED optical beacon to flash Morse Code messages to observers on Earth.

OSSI-1 is planned to launch on April 19, 2013 into a 575 km 64.9° inclination orbit on a Soyuz-2-1b rocket from the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan along with the Bion-M1, SOMP, BEESAT 2, BEESAT 3 and Dove-2 satellites.

The IARU amateur satellite frequency coordination panel has announced frequencies for a downlink on 145.980 MHz and an uplink/downlink on 437.525 MHz.

Video – How the Amateur Radio Satellite OSSI-1 Works
https://amsat-uk.org/2012/08/10/video-how-the-amateur-radio-ossi-1-satellite-works/

Watch the BBC TV report: Korean artist has high hopes for his homemade satellite
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19007475

OSSI CubeSat in New Scientist Magazine
https://amsat-uk.org/2012/11/06/ossi-cubesat-in-new-scientist-magazine/

Hojun Song DS1SBO visited London to give a well received presentation on his CubeSat to WIRED 2012
https://amsat-uk.org/2012/10/24/cubesat-developer-hojun-song-to-attend-wired-2012-london/

Data Format for Korean OSSI CubeSat
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/01/23/data-format-for-korean-ossi-cubesat/

Open Source Satellite Initiative (OSSI) http://opensat.cc/

Feb 28 2013

Antares-110 Amateur Radio CubeSat Integration Completed

Antares-110 CubeSat Integration - Image Credit Spaceflight Inc

Image Credit Spaceflight Inc

Several CubeSats carrying amateur radio payloads are planned to launch on the Antares-110 mission in April.

On the CubeSat mailing list Jason Andrews President and CEO of both Spaceflight Inc and Andrews Space posted:

Spaceflight Inc recently completed CubeSat integration activities for the Antares demonstration mission including deployment dress rehersal.  Spaceflight has two ISIPod deployers on this mission.  One contains three 1U spacecraft for NASA Ames Research Center and the other contains a 3U spacecraft for a commercial customer.  An image of the integration activity can be found here:

https://twitter.com/SpaceflightInc/status/306880665624924161/photo/1

Among the amateur radio CubeSats on the launch are three Phonesats which will all carry Google Nexus smartphones similar to the pioneering UK smartphone satellite STRaND-1 that was launched in February. There will be two PhoneSat 1.0’s and one PhoneSat 2.0 on the launch.

PhoneSat 1.0 cost about $3500 and is built around the Nexus One smartphone, it operates on battery power only with a mission lifetime of approx 1 week.

PhoneSat 2.0 is more expensive at $8000. It is built around the Nexus S smartphone and has solar panels on each face and a mission lifetime until de-orbit of approximately 2 weeks.

The IARU amateur satellite frequency coordination panel have coordinated frequencies of 437.425 MHz and 2401.2-2431.2MHz for the PhoneSats.

Also on the launch is the Dove-1 CubeSat. The Antares-110 launcher is expected to deploy the satellites into a 250 km 51.6° inclination orbit.

Feb 28 2013

PSLV-C20 Object-Satellite Pairings

STRaND-1 PSLV-C20 Launch - Image credit ISRO

STRaND-1 PSLV-C20 Launch – Image credit ISRO

On the AMSAT Bulletin Board Alan WA4SCA has posted information from Space Track of the object-satellite pairings for the PSLV-C20 launch that carried the UK smartphone satellite STRaND-1 into space. He writes:

JSpOC [Joint Space Operations Center] has named the following satellites:

39086 – SARAL
39087 – AAUSAT3
39088 – SAPPHIRE
39089 – NEOSSAT
39090 – STRAND 1
39091 – CANX 3A (BRITE-ASRA)
39092 – CANX 3B (UNIBRITE)
39093 – PSLV R/B
39094 – PSLV DEB

Due to catalog requirements, which requires payloads to be listed prior to the rocket body and another launch debris, objects 39086, 39087, 39092, 39093, and 39094 had to be shifted to be placed in proper sequence.

Elsets were shifted as follows:
39086 was moved to 39093 (PSLV R/B)
39087 was moved to 39094 (PSLV DEB)
39092 was moved to 39086 (SARAL)
39093 was moved to 39087 (AAUSAT3)
39094 was moved to 39092 (CANX 3B)

NORAD Keps/TLEs for recent satellites

Feb 28 2013

Radio Amateur receives STRaND-1 Smartphone Satellite in Brazil

AMSAT-UK_Bevelled_LogoRoland Zurmely PY4ZBZ in Brazil has received the 437.568 MHz telemetry signal from the STRaND-1 smartphone satellite launched on Monday, February 25.

See his STRaND-1 telemetry page in Google English at http://tinyurl.com/cf8l8n4

Page in Portugese http://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/strand.htm

Information on decoding the STRaND-1 amateur radio telemetry beacon

Feb 27 2013

RadFxSat/Fox-1B Amateur Radio CubeSat Proposal Accepted by NASA

AMSAT FOX

AMSAT-NA reports that the RadFxSat/Fox-1B proposal has been accepted by NASA. Tony Monteiro AA2TX writes:

I am pleased to announce that our NASA ELaNa proposal for RadFxSat/Fox-1B has been accepted.

Here is the NASA announcement. Note that the projects are listed in alphabetical order, not priority order. Look for “Vanderbilt and AMSAT.”
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/feb/HQ_13-064_CubeSat_4.html

We requested a launch in 2014.

Feb 27 2013

STRaND-1 Amateur Radio Beacon – New Type with Message

Dr Susan Jason working on STRaND-1

Tweets from Surrey Space Centre @SpaceAtSurrey regarding #STRaND-1.

We have a new beacon type out at the moment – and it has a message in it! See if you can receive it 😀

First to pick it up gets … free STRaND-1 stickers!

STRaND-1 437.568 MHz telemetry information

General STRaND-1 information