Kibo Robot Arm CubeSat Deployment

Masa JN1GKZ reports on four CubeSats that are being sent to the International Space Station on August 4, 2013.

The Japanese space agency JAXA has announced that four CubeSats will be deployed from the ISS by the JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD).

The four CubeSats are:
• PicoDragon a 1U CubeSat developed by Vietnam National Satellite Center(VNSC), University of Tokyo, IHI aerospace. CW beacon on 437.250 MHz and 1k2 AFSK AX.25 telemetry on 437.365 MHz
• ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-X 1U CubeSats developed by Nanorack, NanoSatisfi. ArduSat-1 437.325 MHz 9k6 MSK CCSDS downlink. ArduSat-X 437.345MHz 9k6 MSK CCSDS downlink.
• TechEdSat-3 a 3U CubeSat developed by NASA Ames Research Center

All the satellites should be sent to the ISS by the HTV-4 launcher on August 4, 2013.

The four CubeSats are expected to be deployed from the ISS sometime between October 2013 and March 2014.

It is believed that the company Nanorack will be deploying a number of CubeSats from the ISS this year, they may also be going to the ISS on HTV-4. Aviation Week say Nanorack expects to launch as many as 38 of the units on the first mission. Since CubeSats can be 1U, 2U or 3U in size it’s likely that the number of CubeSats will be less than 38. A figure of 26 CubeSats has been quoted on the IARU amateur satellite frequency coordination page but it is unclear how many of those will be carrying amateur radio payloads.

It is understood Nanorack charge $85,000 per 1U CubeSat for its ISS deployment service, see the Nanorack article at
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=%2Farticle-xml%2FAW_07_22_2013_p28-597963.xml

Also on the HTV-4 launch in August will be the HamVideo transmitter, part of the 2.4 GHz HamTV system. This will be installed in the ISS Columbus module.
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/05/12/hamtv-from-the-iss/

NASA Interns build a CubeSat
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/07/25/interns-build-a-cubesat/