Monthly Archives: April 2014

Apr 2 2014

Euroluna Ion Motor CubeSat Video

Romit-1 - Image Credit Euroluna

Romit-1 – Image Credit Euroluna

Palle Haastrup OZ1HIA, President of Euroluna (OZ9LUNA), provides an update on the Romit-1 CubeSat which has ion motor propulsion.

Euroluna are a Danish amateur team participating in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE contest to be the first privately funded team to land and drive a rover on the Moon.

Their first amateur radio satellite Romit1 is a 2U CubeSat that will transmit on 437.505 MHz using 1200 bps AX.25 packet radio. It will be fitted with an Ion Motor and if everything goes well it should, after a year, be able to raise the orbit from 310 km to 700 km.

It is planned to launch on an Interorbital Systems Neptune 30 rocket.

The team’s latest video update shows Romit-1 going into a vacuum chamber to test outgassing.

Watch Vacuum chamber considerations

Twitter http://twitter.com/Euroluna

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Euroluna/337261739568

Web http://www.euroluna.dk/

Google Lunar X PRIZE http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

Apr 2 2014

FUNcube-1 / AO-73 Transponder April 5-6

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) - Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

FUNcube-1 (AO-73) – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

This weekend the FUNcube team are planning to command FUNcube-1 into full time transponder mode.

It will be commanded into transponder mode on a suitable pass over the UK  on the evening  of Friday, April 4 (likely 21:30 UT).

If all goes well, it will be left in transponder mode until the evening of Sunday, April 6 (likely 20:50 UT).

If you hear the transponder on, please feel free to use it! Enjoy!

73s Jim G3WGM

Apr 1 2014

June 19 launch date confirmed for UKube-1

UKube-1 ready for launch

UKube-1 ready for launch

UKube-1 carries a set of AMSAT-UK FUNcube boards providing a 435/145 MHz linear transponder and educational telemetry beacon. Clyde Space have announced that the launch is now confirmed for June 19, 2014 from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where it will be launched on a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket.

The Clyde Space press release says:

UKube-1 is a 3U CubeSat has been designed and manufactured by Clyde Space at their high-tech facility on the West of Scotland Science Park in Glasgow.  This CubeSat is one of the most advanced of its kind, the complexity of the spacecraft highlighted by the nature of the 6 independent, advanced payloads being flown by the mission.  The UKube-1 mission is the pilot for a collaborative, national CubeSat programme bringing together UK industry and academia to fly educational packages, test new technologies and carry out new space research quickly and efficiently. 

Payloads on UKube-1 include: the first GPS device aimed at measuring plasmaspheric space weather; a camera that will take images of the Earth, and test the effect of radiation on space hardware, using a new generation of imaging sensor; an experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of using cosmic radiation to improve the security of communications satellites and to flight test lower cost electronic systems; an advanced mission interface computer to enable serious number crunching on tiny spacecraft; a high rate S-Band transmitter and patch antenna; an outreach payload that allows school children to interact with the spacecraft.

UKube-1 communications subsystem:
• Telemetry downlink 145.840 MHz
• FUNcube subsystem beacon 145.915 MHz
• 400 mW inverting linear transponder for SSB and CW
– 435.080 -435.060 MHz Uplink
– 145.930 -145.950 MHz Downlink
• 2401.0 MHz S Band Downlink
• 437.425-437.525 MHz UKSEDS myPocketQub Downlink

Clyde Space http://www.clyde-space.com/