Jun 29 2013

FITSAT-1 Ham Radio CubeSat to De-orbit by July 4 – Reports Requested

The five ISS CubeSats Altitude compared with ARISSat-1 - chart by Masa JN1GKZ

The five ISS CubeSats Altitude compared with ARISSat-1 – chart by Masa JN1GKZ

It is expected that the amateur radio CubeSat FITSAT-1, built by students at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology, will re-enter the Earths atmosphere and burn-up by Thursday, July 4.

FITSAT-1 QSL card GW1FKY - Front

FITSAT-1 QSL card received by Ken Eaton GW1FKY

FITSAT-1 and four other CubeSats were deployed from the Internatonal Space Station (ISS) on October 4, 2012. Three of them, WE-WISH, TechEdSat and F-1 have already de-orbited. All of the CubeSats were 1U in size (10x10x10 cm, 1-1.2 kg) except for RAIKO which is a 2U CubeSat twice the size and mass (20x10x10 cm, 2 kg).

Masahiro Arai JN1GKZ has produced a chart showing the decline in altitude of the five CubeSats and compares them with the far larger ARISSat-1 satellite deployed from the ISS on August 3, 2011.

As well as the CW telemetry beacon on 437.250 MHz FITSAT-1 also has a 1200 bps AX.25 packet radio transmitter on 437.445 MHz,  a high-speed (115.2 kbps) data transmitter on 5840.0 MHz and has flashed Morse code to observers on Earth using an LED array.

Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG requests that radio amateurs listen out for the CW telemetry beacon of FITSAT-1 on 437.250 MHz (+/- 10 kHz Doppler shift) during the last few days. Reception reports should be emailed to: tanaka at fit.ac.jp

FITSAT-1 website http://www.fit.ac.jp/~tanaka/fitsat.shtml

Further information and pictures of the CubeSats are at
https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/techedsat-f-1-fitsat-1-we-wish/

Free satellite tracking software:
• SimpleSat Look Down http://www.tomdoyle.org/SimpleSatLookDown/
• Gpredict http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/
• Orbitron http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=9051

Keplerian Two Line Elements (TLEs) ‘Keps’ for CubeSats are at http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/cubesat.txt

Amateur Radio CubeSats TechEdSat, F-1 and FITSAT-1 pass the ISS solar panels

TechEdSat, F-1 and FITSAT-1 pass the ISS solar panels shortly after deployment

Jun 28 2013

UoSAT-1 – OSCAR-9 story in Daily Mail Newspaper Archive

UOSAT-1 OSCAR 9 Team

UoSAT-1 – OSCAR 9 and Team

The Daily Mail newspaper archive from 1896 to 2004 is now available online and contains a wealth of stories about amateur radio and amateur radio satellites such as UoSAT-1 (also known as UoSAT-OSCAR-9 or UO-9) built at the University of Surrey in Guildford.

The amateur radio satellite UoSAT-1, built by Martin Sweeting G3YJO and his team, featured in a Daily Mail story The men who put a dream in space published Tuesday, October 13, 1981. The story is written with a sexist slant, sadly all too common at the time, saying “Every schoolboy can circle Earth with the Guildford satellite”. Apparently the Daily Mail didn’t want schoolgirls to listen to the satellite.

One of the many amateur radio stories the newspaper published is Amateur Radio Triumph that appeared on Friday, November 16, 1928. It describes the first Transatlantic contact between the UK and the USA which took place on the 28 MHz (10m) band.

Free access to the Daily Mail archive is only available until July 20, 2013 at
http://www.galeuk.com/trials/dailymail-opentrial/

Try searching for Amateur Radio or UoSAT or Marconi.

You can save the stories to your PC by selecting 100% zoom then doing a right-hand mouse click on the story and selecting Save Image As in Firefox or Save Picture As in Internet Explorer.

The UoSAT-1 Technical Handbook lists these contributors to the project:
Telecommand System and Flight Configuration – Dr. Martin Sweeting G3YJO, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Power Systems – Jerzy Slowikowski, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Telemetry – Dr. Lui Mansi, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Data Beacons – Bob Haining, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Antenna Systems – Tony Brown, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Navigation Magnetometer – Christine Sweeting G6APF, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Spacecraft Microcomputers – Chris Haynes, UOS/AMSAT-UK
HF Beacons – Colin Smithers G4CWH, UOS/AMSAT-UK
CCD Camera Imaging – Dr Paul Taylor, UOS/AMSAT-UK

30th Anniversary of UoSAT-1 (OSCAR-9)
https://amsat-uk.org/2011/10/12/30th-anniversary-of-uosat-1-oscar-9/

UoSAT-2 – OSCAR-11 still transmitting after 29 years in orbit
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/05/08/oscar-11-still-transmitting-after-29-years/

Jun 28 2013

UK Radio Ham Plans Lunar CubeSat

Pocket Spacecraft

Pocket Spacecraft

UK radio amateur Michael Johnson M0MJJ is raising funds on Kickstarter for a CubeSat that aims to travel to the Moon.

Michael - Founder

Michael – Founder

The Pocket Spacecraft project hopes to raise at least £290,000 ($442,000) to fund a 3U (30x10x10cm) CubeSat. It will carry Pocket Spacecraft known as ‘Scouts’ to the Moon. A ‘Scout’ is a disk with flexible electronics, smaller than a CD, containing a transceiver, antenna and solar cells.

The CubeSat should release a batch of the wafer thin Scout satellites into Earth orbit and deploy another batch of the Scout satellites into Lunar orbit.

Melania - Microgravity Experiment Lead

Melania – Microgravity Experiment Lead

It is understood the mission plans to use the 435 MHz and 2400 MHz bands.

The Kickstarter page says “If you are, or would like to be, a radio amateur, we’ll show you how to communicate directly with your spacecraft in space when it is nearby using inexpensive UHF and S-band equipment. Communication at (cis-)lunar distances is more expensive (typically requiring 5-24m+ steerable dishes), but available to some clubs and enthusiasts.”

Watch the video and read more about the Pocket Spacecraft project at
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1677943140/send-your-own-pocket-spacecraft-on-a-mission-to-th

Pocket Spacecraft is believed to be the first UK satellite project to use Kickstarter. These USA satellite projects have already successfully raised money on Kickstarter:

Radio ham Zac Manchester KD2BHC used Kickstarter to raise $74,586 in donations to fund the development and deployment of 200 amateur radio KickSat sprite satellites expected to take place later this year.

Radio amateurs Jeroen Cappaert KK6BLQ and Joel Spark KK6ANB are on the team of the ham radio satellite project ArduSat. They managed to raise donations of $106,330 in just 30 days.

SkyCube which will transmit on 915 MHz in the 902-928 MHz amateur radio band raised $116,890.

Kickstarter is not just about raising large sums of money, for example Sandy Antunes used Kickstarter to raise $2,780 to buy a ham radio transceiver and antennas to create an amateur radio satellite ground station Calliope.

Jun 27 2013

915-921 MHz to be license exempt in UK

Ofcom-logo-col-tOfcom has published a statement setting out its decision to release the 870-876 MHz and 915-921 MHz spectrum bands on a license exempt basis

This follows a consultation in January 2013. The released spectrum will be used by Short Range Devices (SRDs) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFIDs). A further consultation on the technical details of the license exemption will follow in the autumn.

The adoption of 915-921 MHz by CEPT would create the only license exempt spectrum between 41 and 2400 MHz that is available world-wide. Other license exempt frequency bands for SRDs and RFIDs are only available on a regional or country basis causing problems when equipment produced for one country is sold in another.

The Ofcom statement can be found here
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/872_876_mhz/statement/

The SkyCube CubeSat which aims to be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) at the end of 2013 plans to transmit on 915 MHz.

Naval Postgraduate School CubeSat 915 MHz 57.6 kbps modem http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a556715.pdf

Jun 27 2013

CubeSat Presentation at Radio Club of Paris

AMSAT-Francophone LogoA  CubeSat presentation was given by AMSAT Francophone to a scientific conference held by the Radio Club of Paris F6KVP on May 29, 2013. A video of the presentation has been made available on the web.

AMSAT-Francophone site in Google English http://tinyurl.com/AMSAT-Francophone

Radio Club of Paris F6KVP in Google English http://tinyurl.com/RadioClubParis
F6KVP on Twitter https://twitter.com/F6KVP

Watch Les nanosatellites (Note this video is in French)

Video streaming by Ustream

Jun 26 2013

ESA announce six CubeSats chosen for Phase 1

AAUSAT 4 CubeSat

AAUSAT 4 CubeSat

Six student teams and their supervisors have gathered at ESA’s ESTEC centre in The Netherlands for the kick-off of the new Fly Your Satellite! Programme under the ESA Education Office.

On June 26-28, ESA experts will introduce the objectives and present the activities to be performed during the first phase of the programme.

In January, ESA’s Education Office announced the ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ initiative. This is aimed at offering student teams the opportunity to become familiar with good engineering practice to build and perform satellite testing in order to increase the chances of a successful mission. The 2013 edition of the programme is however only focussing on testing selected university-built satellites that are already at an advanced stage of development.

Launch of Vega VV01

Launch of Vega VV01

‘Fly Your Satellite!’ builds on the success of the ‘CubeSats for the Vega Maiden Flight’ pilot programme. This culminated in 2012 with the launch of seven student-built CubeSats on the first flight of the new ESA Vega launcher.

The focus of the kick-off meeting will consist of coordinating the activity to be performed during the first phase of Fly Your Satellite! enabling the teams to complete the construction of their satellite. This will include extensive satellite testing in ambient conditions under the supervision of ESA specialists who will decide which satellites should participate in the next phase of the programme.

The second phase will see the satellites tested in the simulated conditions of outer space and in those the satellites will experience at launch. These will include vibration and thermal-vacuum tests.

ConSat-1 engineering model

ConSat-1 engineering model

The six CubeSats chosen for Phase 1 are:

Robusta-1B from France will validate a radiation test methodology for specific transistor components.

Oufti-1 from Belgium will demonstrate the D-STAR digital communication protocol and validate high-efficiency solar cells.

ConSat-1 from Canada will analyse radiation characteristics in the South-Atlantic Anomaly, and test technology payloads.

e-st@r-II from Italy will test an Active-Attitude Determination Control System.

AAUSAT4 from Denmark will test an improved version of student built AIS (Automated Identification System) receivers.

Politech.1 from Spain will carry a student built C-band communication system, a “GEODEYE” Earth Observation camera for academic purposes, and solar wind experiments.

Read the full ESA article at http://www.esa.int/Education/ESA_and_student_teams_kick-off_Fly_Your_Satellite

Fly Your Satellite! initiative http://www.esa.int/Education/Students_are_you_ready_to_fly_your_satellites_in_space