Author Archives: m0xtd

Feb 16 2012

The QB50 project

The QB50 project, funded by the European Commission, deals with the design and the launch of a network of 50 miniaturized satellites to study the lower layers of the thermosphere / ionosphere. This project receives as from 15th of January 2012 financial support from the FP 7 EC program and is run by an international consortium under the leadership of the von Karman Institute near Brussels.

These satellites called “CubeSats”, completely functional, are built by universities for an educational purpose. All 50 CubeSats will be launched out of Murmansk, situated in the Northern Russia, into a circular orbit at 320 km altitude, inclination 79° around the Earth. Due to atmospheric drag, the orbits will decay and progressively lower layers of the thermosphere / ionosphere will be then explored. A network of standard satellites for in-situ measurements can only be realized by using very low-cost satellites, and CubeSats are the only realistic option.

This project includes universities in 30 European countries and universities in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Peru, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, USA and Vietnam. For many of these countries, CubeSats will be their first satellite in orbit and a matter of national prestige.

The von Karman institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) is the lead institute of this consortium and manages this international project which involves over 500 researchers from 50 countries. Jean Muylaert, Director of the Institute and responsible for the project, stresses that it will be the first time that a dedicated CubeSat space mission will be performed for unique atmospheric science and also to demonstrate new in-orbit qualification methods.

Useful websites:

http://www.QB50.eu for the Qb50 project

http://www.cubesatsymposium.eu for the 4th European CubeSat Symposium

Feb 16 2012

Solving the TLE lottery

TLEsWhen amateur radio satellites are initially deployed Two Line Elements (TLE) Keplerian orbital data sets for tracking the satellites are released by NORAD. Unfortunately they are only given object identifiers of A, B, C, D etc not satellite names. Some of the debris from the launch and deployment may also be given alphabetic identifiers. The problem is working out which of the 10 or more objects is the satellite you want to listen to.

Mike DK3WN has developed a simple solution to this perennial problem by using an SDR-IQ receiver and a bit of software.

In the case of Masat-1 he chose a high elevation pass (89 deg) where the doppler shift should be significant and recorded the complete pass with his SDR-IQ without doppler correction. With some software he simulated the entire pass with different TLE’s.

He then chose the TLE that best matched the doppler shift of the audio signal.

Read Mike’s full article with pictures on his website at http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=26038

Feb 15 2012

Incredible World of Communication Satellites (Infographic)

By MrPromo

Most of us take satellites for granted. Satellites are so far removed from our daily reality, they’re easy to forget about. Yet even from the unimaginable distance at which they orbit the earth, they allow us to use mobile phones, TV, radio and the internet. So who makes them? Who launches them? And what do they look like up close?

Incredible World of Communication Satellites 

Continue reading →

Feb 15 2012

NASA Announces Third Round Of CubeSat Space Mission Candidates

Roland Coelho WH7BE Research Associate at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a CubeSat - Image Credit NASA

Roland Coelho WH7BE Research Associate at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a CubeSat - Image Credit NASA

NASA has selected 33 small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2013 and 2014. The proposed CubeSats come from universities across the country, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, NASA field centers and Department of Defense organizations.

CubeSats are a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. The cube-shaped satellites are approximately 10 cm long, have a volume of about one litre and weigh less than 1.3 kg.

The selections are from the third round of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. After launch, the satellites will conduct technology demonstrations, educational research or science missions. The selected spacecraft are eligible for flight after final negotiations and an opportunity for flight becomes available. The satellites come from the following organizations:

— Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
— Air Force Research Lab, Wright-Patterson AFB
— California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
— Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
— Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
— Montana State University, Bozeman
— Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. (2 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
— NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
— NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (2 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.
— The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, Silver Spring, Md.
— Saint Louis University, St. Louis
— Salish Kootenai College, Pablo, Mont.
— Space and Missile Defense Command, Huntsville, Ala. (2 CubeSats)
— Taylor University, Upland, Ind.
— University of Alabama, Huntsville
— University of California, Berkeley
— University of Colorado, Boulder (2 CubeSats)
— University of Hawaii, Manoa (3 CubeSats)
— University of Illinois, Urbana (2 CubeSats)
— University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
— University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D.
— University of Texas, Austin
— US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.
— Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg

Thirty-two CubeSat missions have been selected for launch in the previous two rounds of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. Eight CubeSat missions have been launched (including five selected via the CubeSat Launch Initiative) to date via the agency’s Launch Services Program Educational Launch of Nanosatellite, or ELaNa, program.

For additional information on NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative program, visit: http://go.usa.gov/Qbf

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/

Source NASA

AMSAT Fox-1 Amateur Radio CubeSat selected for NASA ELaNa launch collaboration http://www.uk.amsat.org/4558

Feb 14 2012

Poland… CubeSat's Journey Starts.

Poland… CubeSat’s Journey Starts.

PW-Sat

PW-Sat

PW-Sat was successfully deployed on orbit. This first Polish satellite, built by students, was successfully launched by the new European rocket Vega. This marks the end of the preparation stage for the PW-Sat project and the beginning of a new era for the Polish space sector. The PW-Sat project was initiated in 2004 at theWarsaw University of Science and Technology (Politechnika Warszawska, PW) with the support from the Polish Space Research Center (Centrum Badań Kosmicznych, CBK). The main aim of this project is to educate engineering students through participation in a real space project.

The satellite is a CubeSat 1 unit (10x10x11, 3 cm, 1004 grams of mass) which hosts a deployable tail structure of 100 cm in length. Once on orbit, tested and verified, this tail will be deployed in order to speed-up the rate of PW-Sat’s orbital decay. The deployment of the tail should result in a faster deorbitation of PW-Sat in approximately one year, as opposed to four years without the tail. If the tail works as designed, then PW-Sat might be the baseline for more advanced studies on a low-cost and effective deorbitation system for small satellites.

PW-Sat was deployed from the P-POD mechanism approximately 70 minutes after launch. One hour later, the first signal from PW-Sat was picked by the ground station in Warsaw, Poland. PW-Sat is an example of a modern approach to provide hands-on experience to engineering students. After graduation, most of the students working in the PW-Sat project will probably join the emerging Polish aerospace sector. Some of them already started to work in various space projects, including the BRITE-PL scientific satellites. (Source:kosmonauta.net)

Satellites placed in space by Vega have been noticed by American network to track objects in orbit (SSN network allows monitoring of active satellites and space junk, more about that here: www.astronautilus.pl ). The objects have been given the customary designation from the 2012-04A 2012-04J. At that hides the PW-Sat not yet known.However, all the satellites move in a very similar trajectory. What can be said about it? PW-Sat is on an elliptical orbit with perigee of about 310 km and apogee 1441 km. The Earth needs a full lap hours and 42 minutes (102.47 min), so during the day revolves around the Blue Planet fourteen times. (google Translated)

 

 

 

Feb 13 2012

Software Defined Radio (SDR) Testbed for ISS

ISS SCaN Testbed

NASA Glenn Research engineers prepare the SCaN Testbed flight system hardware in Vacuum Facility 6 for rigorous thermal-vacuum testing. Image Credit: NASA

New and improved ways for future space travelers to communicate will be tested on the International Space Station after a launch later this year from Japan. The SCaN Testbed, or Space Communications and Navigation Testbed, was designed and built at NASA’s Glenn Research Center over the last three years.

The SCaN Testbed will provide an orbiting laboratory on space station for the development of Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology. These systems will allow researchers to conduct a suite of experiments over the next several years, enabling the advancement of a new generation of space communications.

The testbed will be the first space hardware to provide an experimental laboratory to demonstrate many new capabilities, including new communications, networking and navigation techniques that utilize Software Defined Radio technology. The SCaN Testbed includes three such radio devices, each with different capabilities. These devices will be used by researchers to advance this technology over the Testbed’s five year planned life in orbit.

“A Software Defined Radio is purposely reconfigured during its lifetime, which makes it unique,” says Diane Cifani Malarik, project manager for the SCaN Testbed. This is made possible by software changes that are sent to the device, allowing scientists to use it for a multitude of functions, some of which might not be known before launch. Traditional radio devices cannot be upgraded after launch.

By developing these devices, future space missions will be able to return more scientific information, because new software loads can add new functions or accommodate changing mission needs. New software loads can change the radio’s behavior to allow communication with later missions that may use different signals or data formats.

The SCaN Testbed is a complex space laboratory, comprised of three SDRs, each with unique capabilities aimed at advancing different aspects of the technology. Two SDRs were developed under cooperative agreements with General Dynamics and Harris Corp., and the third was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. JPL also provided the five-antenna system on the exterior of the testbed, used to communicate with NASA’s orbiting communications relay satellites and NASA ground stations across the United States.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., developed communications software that resides on the JPL SDR.

Glenn led the design, development, integration, test and evaluation effort and provided all the facilities needed to fabricate, assemble and test the SCaN Testbed, including a flight machine shop, large thermal/vacuum chamber, electromagnetic interference testing with reverberant capabilities, a large clean room and multiple antenna ranges, including one inside the clean room.

Glenn also will be the hub of mission operations for the SCaN Testbed, with high-speed ties to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., for real-time command and telemetry interfaces with space station. NASA Johnson Space Center’s White Sands Test Facility, Las Cruces, N.M., and Goddard’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., will provide Space Network and Near Earth Network communications.

The SCaN Testbed will launch to space station on Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-IIB Transfer Vehicle (HTV-3) and be installed by extravehicular robotics to the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier-3 on the exterior truss of space station.

The SCaN Testbed will join other NASA network components to help build capabilities for a new generation of space communications for human exploration.

Source NASA