Canadian – Norwegian Student Exchange, Rocket & CubeSat Program

This video provides a short description of the Canada-Norway Student Sounding Rocket (CaNoRock) exchange program and plans for the student CaNoSat sub-orbital CubeSats.

CaNoRock is a partnership between the Universities of Alberta, Calgary and Saskatchewan, the University of Oslo, University of Tromsø, Andøya Rocket Range and NAROM (Norwegian Center for Space Related Education) in Norway. The University of Bergen and University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) in Norway are currently working to be included in the program.

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SpinSat Packet Radio Satellite To Launch Next Summer

SpinSat comprises a 19 inch diameter sphere, with a mass of 55 kg and 4 antennas equal distance around the equator. It is intended to be a tumbling satellite with single axis momentum wheel and multiple micro-thrusters.

It aims to test new technology micro-thrusters and teach high school students about satellite operations.

Secondary mission is a 9k6 GFSK UHF store and forward AX.25 packet radio system with 2 watts of RF output. Planned for a July 2013 launch from Kennedy Space Center into a 330 km 51.6 degree inclination orbit.

A downlink frequency of 437.230 MHz has been coordinated.

IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel status page http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru

Nexus S PhoneSat v2 Plans Summer 2013 Launch

PhoneSat v2 is a technology demonstration mission intended to increase the functional capabilities of PhoneSat v1 and demonstrate complete satellite functionally in a low cost package.

The satellite is built around the Nexus S smartphone which will be running the Android operating system and will be enclosed in a standard 1U CubeSat structure.

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Swedish Radio Show Features Hojun Song DS1SBO and OSSI CubeSat

Hojun Song DS1SBO and the NovaNano FlyMate deployer

On Monday, November 26 at 12:10 CET Swedish Radio broadcast a show about the Maker Movement that included an item on Hojun Song DS1SBO and the OSSI CubeSat that is planned to launch on a Soyuz-2-1b rocket into a 575 km 63° inclination orbit in April 2013.

The item featuring Hojun Song DS1SBO started about 1:20 into the show and the MP3 can be downloaded from http://sverigesradio.se/topsy/ljudfil/4274449.mp3

A picture and details of the show in Google English are at http://bit.ly/TlA6B

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Video of Elon Musk lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer – credit SpaceX

On Friday, November 16, CEO and Chief Designer of SpaceX, Elon Musk was the guest of honor at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London to present a lecture entitled ‘SpaceX and the future of space exploration’.

The packed lecture was also notable in that the audience saw Elon Musk presented with the Royal Aeronautical’s Society’s highest award – a Gold Medal. This award has been presented since 1909 when the first Gold Medal was given to the Wright Brothers. It is the most prestigious award in global aerospace honoring exceptional contributions and achievements.

Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), in June 2002. Since then SpaceX has developed the Falcon family of launch vehicles and the Dragon multi-purpose spacecraft.

His personal goal is to eventually enable human exploration and settlement of  Mars.

 

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Alternative use for CubeSats

While radio amateurs use CubeSats for communications Glasgow based Alba Space is planning to use them for Space Burials.

Alba Space say they aim to use CubeSats to carry cremated ashes into Space and their longer term aims include helping open access to Space.

The company’s founder Tom Walkinshaw was interviewed recently on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland show.

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