ARTSAT2-DESPATCH received by Zdenek Samek OK1DFC on December 14, 2014 at 21:18:41 UT

Zdenek Samek OK1DFC and Rob Hardenberg PE1ITR reported receiving the amateur radio beacon from the ARTSAT2:DESPATCH spacecraft on December 14 at a distance of 4,700,000 km.

Congratulations to both radio amateurs on a remarkable achievement.

The amateur radio spacecraft ARTSAT2:DESPATCH JQ1ZNN and Shin’en2 JG6YIG were launched on their journey to deep space at 04:22:04 UT on Wednesday, December 3, 2014. The two spacecraft will have an elliptic orbit around the Sun and travel to a deep space orbit between Venus and Mars. The inclination will be almost zero, which means the spacecraft should stay in the Earth’s equatorial plane. The distance from the Sun will be between 0.7 and 1.3 AU. An Astronomical Unit (AU) is 149,597,871 km.

OK1DFC website http://www.ok1dfc.com/eme/despatch/despatch.htm

See images of the reception of ARTSAT2:DESPATCH by Rob Hardenberg PE1ITR at http://www.pe1itr.com/artsat2despatch/

PE1ITR Shin’en2 reception http://www.pe1itr.com/shinen2/

Shin’en2 on left – ARTSAT2:DESPATCH on right

Tracking utilities for the DESPATCH and Shin’en2 spacecraft are available at
http://ji1izr.air-nifty.com/ham_satellite/in_english/index.html

Shin’en2 437.385 MHz http://www.shin-en2.jp/index_E.html

ARTSAT2:DESPATCH 437.325 MHz CW
Web http://despatch.artsat.jp/en/Main_Page
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/artsat
Twitter https://twitter.com/DESPATCH_ARTSAT

DESPATCH reception reports are summarized at:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WP-FzXHe8axAzNy44SGbKpJqIRKWHAcIP9vXnaHMb6g/edit#gid=0
http://despatch.artsat.jp/en/Cooperative_Data_Reconstruction

Ham radio spacecraft launched into deep space
https://amsat-uk.org/2014/12/03/ham-radio-spacecraft-launched-into-deep-space/