AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch

We are extremely grateful to all the groups and individuals who have uploaded FUNcube-1 (AO-73) data to the warehouse and the totals on the upload ranking page are quite amazing.

Since launch we have been monitoring the service which receives, processes and stores that data and now are about to make some changes to it to improve it performance and reliability.

The first change is to introduce an acceptance time window for packets uploaded from the Dashboard. This restricts packets to those whose sequence numbers are within +/- 48 hours of the latest sequence number stored in the Data Warehouse. We are doing this for two reasons:

We have received erroneous packets whose sequence numbers are significantly different to the latest value. To reduce the chance of double scoring of points when we release stored data back to the user community

The second change, which will not affect normal operation but will improve scoring:

We currently process packets immediately they arrive at the server. Under load, this can cause us to lose a few packet scores because of contention in the database. To alleviate this problem, we are going to change the processing slightly to process packets through a buffer. This buffer will be processed every 5 seconds, so there will be a slight delay before packets are acknowledged on the ranking.

73 Dave, G4DPZ

Dashboard App – Telemetry Decoder http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/funcube-telemetry-dashboard/

Data Warehouse – Telemetry Archive http://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/

The FUNcube Team are pleased to announce the latest version of the Dashboard Software.

Version 814 can be downloaded from http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/funcube-telemetry-dashboard/

We thank everyone for their interest and reports of the success of FUNcube-1 (AO-73) and we look forward to continued operations.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas
73 The FUNcube Project Team

Sun Sensors

Total Photo Current

There is now a facility to view the latest FUNcube-1 (AO-73) High Resolution Data uploaded to the Data Warehouse. The link can be found in the Navigation Bar on the warehouse.

Following on from this will be making Hi-Res data available to download via .csv files, in a similar way we do for Whole Orbit Data. Watch this space.

Seasons Greetings
Dave, G4DPZ

Battery Volts

Dashboard App – Telemetry Decoder
http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/funcube-telemetry-dashboard/

Data Warehouse – Telemetry Archive
http://warehouse.funcube.org.uk/

Satellite Tracking Apps
https://amsat-uk.org/beginners/satellite-tracking/

FUNcube-1 flight model – Image credit Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG

The FUNcube-1 (AO-73) spacecraft has now been in orbit and fully operational for one month.

We are very happy and VERY grateful to all the stations who have committed their time and effort into regularly receiving the telemetry and uploading it to our Data Warehouse. We really want to say a BIG THANK YOU and please keep it coming.

Dave G4DPZ is still busy refining the operation of the Warehouse and is promising more features over the next few days/weeks. Further updates to the Dashboard are also expected soon.

If anyone knows of potential additional stations that could be established in some of the remoter parts of the globe we would be grateful to have your ideas and introductions. “Simple” stations with omnidirectional antennas,  dongles and internet connected laptops would be all that is needed.

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch

We intend to keep the present operating schedule in place for the time being whilst various on board parameters continue to be characterized by the team.

The present low internal temperatures being experienced by the spacecraft, at least in the northern hemisphere, are causing some frequency shifting to take place – especially on the uplink frequencies – roll on summer!

We are not yet 100% certain that Object 2013-066AE is FUNcube-1 but it is looking the most likely candidate.

As the launch was more than 30 days ago, the record for this object has now moved to the http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/cubesat.txt file and the object is now referred to as DNEPR OBJECT AE.

The http://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/latest-two-line-elements/ page has been updated to match.

73! de the FUNcube team