The Data Warehouse now provides the facility to download FUNcube-1 (AO-73) Whole Orbit Data (WOD) as a .csv file. The file is produced at 23:59 every day and contains data for the preceding 24 hours. It contains all the channels shown on the WOD graph, which shows the latest orbit data captured.
WRAPS Portable Satellite Antenna Rotator System – Copyright ARRL
The January 2014 edition of QST contains an article by ARRL Education and Technology Program Coordinator Mark Spencer WA8SME on a portable azimuth and elevation rotator system for tracking satellites called WRAPS.
WRAPS stands for Wobbler RadFxSat Antenna Pointing System rotator system which Mark developed to support tracking CubeSats such as FUNcube-1 and the upcoming Fox-1 and RadFxSat/Fox-1B. His target audience includes school groups who want to access the capabilities of the CubeSats.
Thanks to Mark and the ARRL a copy of the article in PDF format is available here WRAPS – Mark Spencer WA8SME QST Jan 2014 Copyright ARRL.
For personal use only – no copying, reprinting or distribution without written permission from the ARRL.
Mark Spencer WA8SME gave a presentation on WRAPS during the 2013 AMSAT Space Symposium in Houston, Texas, on Friday, November 1, 2013. His talk was recorded by Patrick Stoddard VA7EWK.
Apologies for missing the start of Mark’s introduction, and for the quality of this video. The Symposium organizers dimmed the lights in the front of the room for this presentation, which meant Mark was essentially standing in the dark as he gave his presentation.
At the AMSAT Forum at the 2013 Dayton Hamvention the presentations on education wrapped up with a talk by Mark Spencer, ARRL Education & Technology Program Director. “Spence”, WA8SME, briefly described his classroom experiments for measuring the “wobble” of the Fox satellite, demonstrating a Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) for a solar array, and WRAPS a lower cost azimuth-elevation rotor system for lightweight satellite antennas.
Watch Fox Classroom Experiments, by Spence WA8SME – 2013 Dayton Hamvention
A limited number of complete WRAPS systems will be available through the AMSAT-NA Store. As of December 12 they were not yet available, and AMSAT-NA do not at present have a firm date when they will be in stock. Because of uncertainty of the price and number which will be available, they are not taking advanced orders. When they are ready to process orders, AMSAT-NA will make the information public. Please do not call the AMSAT office.
This computer-generated image depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft firing its Leros-1b main engine – credit NASA
When NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew past Earth on Oct. 9, 2013, it received a boost in speed of more than 7.3 kilometers per second, which set it on course for a July 4, 2016, rendezvous with Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
During the flyby, Juno’s Waves instrument, which is tasked with measuring radio and plasma waves in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, recorded amateur radio signals. This was part of a public outreach effort involving ham radio operators from around the world. They were invited to say “HI” to Juno by coordinating radio transmissions that carried the same Morse-coded message. Operators from every continent, including Antarctica, participated. The results can be seen in this video clip at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA17744.mov
Watch Watch Hams Detected From Space by NASA’s Juno Spacecraft
Watch this video depicting the efforts of a few of the many amateur radio operators who participated
One of Juno’s sensors, a special kind of camera optimized to track faint stars, also had a unique view of the Earth-moon system. The result was an intriguing, low-resolution glimpse of what our world would look like to a visitor from afar.
“If Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise said, ‘Take us home, Scotty,’ this is what the crew would see,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio. “In the movie, you ride aboard Juno as it approaches Earth and then soars off into the blackness of space. No previous view of our world has ever captured the heavenly waltz of Earth and moon.”
Watch the Juno Earth flyby movie with a music accompaniment by Vangelis
The cameras that took the images for the movie are located near the pointed tip of one of the spacecraft’s three solar-array arms. They are part of Juno’s Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) and are normally used to determine the orientation of the magnetic sensors. These cameras look away from the sunlit side of the solar array, so as the spacecraft approached, the system’s four cameras pointed toward Earth. Earth and the moon came into view when Juno was about 600,000 miles (966,000 kilometers) away — about three times the Earth-Moon separation.
During the flyby, timing was everything. Juno was traveling about twice as fast as a typical satellite, and the spacecraft itself was spinning at 2 rpm. To assemble a movie that wouldn’t make viewers dizzy, the star tracker had to capture a frame each time the camera was facing Earth at exactly the right instant. The frames were sent to Earth, where they were processed into video format.
“Everything we humans are and everything we do is represented in that view,” said the star tracker’s designer, John Jørgensen of the Danish Technical University, near Copenhagen.
“With the Earth flyby completed, Juno is now on course for arrival at Jupiter on July 4, 2016,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The Juno spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 5, 2011. Juno’s launch vehicle was capable of giving the spacecraft only enough energy to reach the asteroid belt, at which point the sun’s gravity pulled it back toward the inner solar system. Mission planners designed the swing by Earth as a gravity assist to increase the spacecraft’s speed relative to the sun, so that it could reach Jupiter. (The spacecraft’s speed relative to Earth before and after the flyby is unchanged.)
After Juno arrives and enters into orbit around Jupiter in 2016, the spacecraft will circle the planet 33 times, from pole to pole, and use its collection of science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover. Scientists will learn about Jupiter’s origins, internal structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
The 2U ESTELLE will accommodate the QB50 scientific payload and an experimental miniaturized cold gas thruster module with four thrusters and 50 grams of fuel.
This mission is a partnership between Estonia, Sweden, Latvia and Slovenia. The general hardware design will improve upon the single unit ESTCube-1, launched on May 7, 2013.
Cold gas propulsion system is seen as a very attractive solution for the CubeSats, as the standard limits the use of pyrotechnics and high-pressure systems. The propulsion module, developed by NanoSpace, uses butane under 2-5 bar pressure. This should be in accordance with the next CubeSat standard revision. The 0.3 unit module will be located at the opposite end from the QB50 payload. It contains four thrusters, which are placed on the same side for maximum delta-v capability (40 m/s). This delta-v capability can be used to alternate the orbit in order to enhance the scientific return of the QB50 mission by extending the satellite’s lifetime.
ESTELLE Cold Gas Thruster – Credit NanoSpace
An experimental high data rate transmitter (HDRT) is envisaged if it fits within the system margins to include it on-board the satellite. It would operate on S, C or X band amateur radio frequencies and use BPSK modulation. Up to 10 Mbit/s data rates can be achieved with 3 W of operating power.
Proposing a UHF GMSK/BPSK downlinks up to 19k2 bps and a series of HDRT experiments including a 2.4 GHz downlink using GFSK/BPSK at up to 1Mbps, a 5.8 GHz downlink using GFSK and BPSK at up to 10Mbps and a 10 GHz downlink at up to 10 Mbp.
This computer-generated image depicts NASA’s Juno spacecraft firing its Leros-1b main engine – credit NASA
In a post on the AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) Andy Thomas G0SFJ informs us of a presentation on Tuesday, December 10 regarding the amateur radio “Say Hi to Juno” project.
In October, the Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft did a flyby of Earth before its long journey. The Juno team presents a low-resolution Earth flyby video as well as data acquired by the spacecraft as it zipped past the home planet. Team members will also discuss results from the mission’s outreach campaign inviting amateur radio operators to “Say Hi to Juno” as the spacecraft passed, and the scientific goals for the mission once it reaches Jupiter.
Participants:
Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, USA;
John Joergensen, Juno star-camera team lead, Danish Technical University, Copenhagen, Denmark;
Bill Kurth, co-investigator for the Juno Waves Investigation, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
The $50SAT team is asking for help in capturing telemetry from the amateur radio 1.5U PocketQube satellite $50SAT on 437.505 MHz (+/-9 kHz Doppler shift) CW.
$50SAT Boards
We are trying to determine the charging characteristics of the power system. The three team members all live above 40 degrees north and the satellite does not warm up enough during nighttime N-S passes to allow charging to begin. None of us are usually around during the daytime S-N passes and we would particularly appreciate telemetry reports when the satellite is in daylight.
Any form of report is welcome: decode of the fast Morse (120 WPM), RTTY demod, audio recording or I/Q capture from a FUNcube or RTL dongle would be greatly appreciated.
A link to a detailed description of the communications package can be found on the $50SAT website, http://www.50dollarsat.info/. The last distribution of Keps from AMSAT contain good elements for $50SAT.
$50SAT a 1.5U PocketQube
$50SAT is one of the smallest amateur radio satellites ever launched at 5x5x7.5 cm and weighs only 210 grams. Transmitter power is just 100 mW.
$50SAT has been a collaborative education project between Professor Bob Twiggs, KE6QMD, Morehead State University and three other radio amateurs, Howie DeFelice, AB2S, Michael Kirkhart, KD8QBA, and Stuart Robinson, GW7HPW.
The $50SAT team plan to make all the software and hardware designs freely available to anyone who wants them for personal or educational use. For further information see the $50SAT Dropbox at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l3919wtfiywk2gf/-HxyXNsIr8
The Data Warehouse now provides the facility to download FUNcube-1 (AO-73) Whole Orbit Data (WOD) as a .csv file. The file is produced at 23:59 every day and contains data for the preceding 24 hours. It contains all the channels shown on the WOD graph, which shows the latest orbit data captured.
AMSAT-UK 
You must be logged in to post a comment.