UniBrite (CanX 3A) was launched Monday, February 25, on the same rocket as STRaND-1. It has an amateur radio Morse Code beacon on 145.980 MHz.
This report was posted on the AMSAT Bulletin Board by Yasir Osman ST2YM in Khartoum, Sudan.
ST2UOK ground station at the University of Khartoum, Sudan has tracked the first pass over Africa of AAUSAT-3 , STRaND-1 and UniBRITE after the launching in 12:25 UTC, a CW signal with high noise heard and expected to be the beacon of the UniBRITE. As pointed by operators Abubakr, Yasir ,
Mustafa and Hala.
On the AMSAT bulletin board Hector Martinez, CO6CBF, reports receiving the smartphone satellite STRaND-1 using a FUNcube Dongle Software Defined Radio (SDR).
He posted:
On the 22:36 UTC pass both STRaND-1 and AAUSAT3 have been heard in Cienfuegos city (EL92sd). I was running a FUNcube Dongle with SDR-Radio V1.5 and a homebrew ARROW antenna with a homebrew preamplifier. The STRaND-1 beacon has a great signal (S9+).
Congratulations to the STRaND-1 and AAUSAT3 teams for the great job!
The STRaND-1 team have asked if radio amateurs can assist in collecting telemetry from around the world to help them determine the health and attitude of the spacecraft.
The telemetry downlink is amateur radio AX.25 packet radio on 437.568 MHz using 9600 bps FSK modulated data with HDLC frame, NRZI encoding.
Dr Chris Bridges would be delighted to receive all available files by email to C.P.Bridges@surrey.ac.uk
The first UK CubeSat, STRaND-1, was launched on Monday, February 25 at 1231 UT on the PSLV-C20 rocket from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Satish Dhawan space centre. Deployment from the launch vehicle into a 785 km orbit took place about 20 minutes later. Signals from STRaND-1 were received by Nader Omer ST2NH in Sudan at 1555 UT and by the Surrey Space Centre on Monday evening.
STRaND stands for Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration and the programme is intended to be a long-term arrangement between the space company SSTL and academic researchers at the Surrey Space Centre (SSC), with STRaND-1 the first of a long line of STRaND nanosatellites.
The SSTL employees and SSC researchers involved with the STRaND programme are all volunteers. It is a condition of the programme that volunteers from SSTL and SSC use their own, free time for STRaND activities (such as lunches and breaks). The project has no budget for staff so is entirely dependent on volunteers.
The innovative STRaND-1 CubeSat was built and tested in just three months. It will demonstrate the feasibility of using cheap smartphone electronics to control a spacecraft. STRaND-1 carries an amateur radio AX.25 packet radio downlink on 437.568 MHz using 9k6 bps FSK modulated data HDLC frame, NRZI encoding. The telemetry format is available here. Watch the videos in the STRaND-1 video archive.
The next AMSAT Phase 3 satellite – Arianespace visit in Marburg (P3-E with flight antennas, but dummy solar panels)
The P3E-satellite continues the successful series of AO-10, AO-13 and AO-40. It will again support communications from continent to continent.
Amateur Radio Satellite AO-40
The downlink frequencies are in the bands at 145 and 2400 MHz, the uplinks at 435 and 1268 MHz. Thus it can be used by all radio amateurs who were previously active on the earlier Phase-3 satellites. Additionally P3E provides possibilities for experimentation using uplinks at 2.45 and 5.8 GHz as well as downlinks at 10,5, 24 and 47 GHz.
BRITE satellite at UTIAS-SFL – Image credit University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies
The two space telescope satellites launching with STRaND-1 on Feb. 25 at 1225 UT will also be carrying amateur radio payloads
Yahoo report that the two tiny satellites billed as the world’s smallest space telescopes will study the brightest stars in the night sky.
CanX-3a, BRITE (BRIght-star Target Explorer) and TUGSat-1 (Technische Universität Graz Satellit), BRITE–Austria are planned to launch from India with the UK smartphone satellite STRaND-1 on a PSLV-C20 rocket.
The BRITE satellites will carry a 100mW amateur radio beacon on 145.980 MHz using 15 WPM Morse Code.
UniBrite (CanX 3A) was launched Monday, February 25, on the same rocket as STRaND-1. It has an amateur radio Morse Code beacon on 145.980 MHz.
AMSAT-UK 
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