Aeneas – University of Southern California
The launch of the amateur radio CubeSats on an Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base has been postponed until at least Tuesday, August 14.
Amateur Radio CubeSat Launch Postponed
Tag Archives: Amateur Radio
Carpcomm Amateur Radio CubeSat Space Communication Network
The Carpcomm Space Network aims to brings together ham radio operators, university ground stations and interested people around the world to form a global space communication network.
2o12W Active on the Amateur Radio Satellites
Ken Eaton GW1FKY operating the Amateur Radio Satellites at 2o12W – Picture Credit Phil Jones MW0PJJ
Olympic Flagship Special Event Station 2 Oscar 12 Whiskey (2o12W) has been active on the amateur radio satellites working stations in the USA and across Europe.
TubeSat aims to test Ion Engine
FRETS1 TubeSat – Image Credit Wes Faler
Wes Faler is building a small satellite called Fluid & Reason Engine Test Satellite 1 or FRETS1.
FRETS1 is a TubeSat-style picosatellite that aims to fly in 2013 on an Interorbital Systems Neptune rocket into a 310 km sun synchronous orbit. Its mission is to test a new kind of ion engine, one designed for higher thrust and lower power than traditional designs.
It’s planned to use a closed cell foam filled with pressurized nitrogen, vaporizing the supporting plastic and releasing the enclosed nitrogen using a spark system similar to that used by Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPTs). PPTs create an arc across the face of a solid Teflon bar, turning a few micrograms of Teflon into plasma. The plasma moves along the PPT’s cathode and anode by Lorentz forces, much the same way that a rail gun accelerates its conducting projectile.
This video gives a brief overview of what a TubeSat is.
Watch SatTV Technology Update – TubeSat
Note it is understood the first launches will take place in California rather than the site mentioned in the video.
Building An Ion Engine http://www.science20.com/satellite_diaries/building_ion_engine-81149
FRETS1 TubeSat http://frets1.wordpress.com/
Interorbital Systems http://www.interorbital.com/
Tubesat – Image Credit Interorbital Systems
Not your Grandfathers moon landing
Part-Time Scientists team members Robert Böhme and Karsten Becker
The Google Lunar X-Prize team Part-Time Scientists delivered a presentation Not your Grandfathers moon landing at the Chaos Communication Congress.
The YouTube description reads:
Karsten Becker, Robert Böhme: Not your Grandfathers moon landing
Hell yeah, it’s Rocket Science 3.1415926535897932384626!
The basics, we are team of part-time scientists and engineers who want to send a rover to the moon before the end of the year 2013. There is a lot to be done towards this first private moon landing and we want to take the chance to explore what we want to do and show what we already accomplished in the past 12 months. The talk will feature important technical milestone like our very first R3 rover prototype and great events like the CCCamp11. There is also be a live demonstration of the very first R3A rover right in the presentation.
We want to take this chance to present where we are and what is next to go on the worlds first private mission to the moon. 2011 was great and we want to show you some of our personal highlights like us actually doing real rocket science at the CCCamp11. We will have a close look at the first R3 Rover prototype how it got made and all the cool things we already did with it and going to test along the next year.
We’re aiming for a pretty quick and dense 30 minute review of 2011 with an outlook for 2012 and then do a live presentation of the R3 rover with an open Q&A round.
This time we split our efforts and got our most interesting presenters to enroll for separate talks on one self picked exciting topic they worked on this year in their own free time.
Watch 28c3: Not your Grandfathers moon landing
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) issues the team encountered are discussed at 19:15 into the video.
A high quality version of this video can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/vROKTo
In the second presentation Wes Faler talks about Evolving custom communication protocols – Hell Yeah, it’s rocket science
Even after years of committee review, communication protocols can certainly be hacked, sometimes highly entertainingly. What about creating a protocol the opposite way? Start with all the hacks that can be done and search for a protocol that gets around them all. Is it even possible? Part-Time Scientists has used a GPU to help design our moon mission protocols and we’ll show you the what and how. Danger: Real code will be shown!
Watch 28c3: Evolving custom communication protocols
A high quality version of this video can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/vOzAsF
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/PartTimeScientists
Part-Time Scientists http://www.ptscientists.com/
Amateur Radio Lunar Rover http://www.uk.amsat.org/9175
Deep Space Communications Array (COMRAY) (Project Leader Michael Doornbos N4LNX of Evadot) http://www.comray.net/
Google Lunar X-Prize http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/
Part Time Scientists Lunar Rover
NHK TV Video of Amateur Radio CubeSat FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA)
An English language NHK TV news story covers the amateur radio CubeSat FITSAT-1 also known as NIWAKA which launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 21.
Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG and FITSAT
FITSAT-1 has multiple downlinks, CW on 437.250 MHz, AX.25 on 437.445 MHz and a 4 watt high speed data transmitter on 5840 MHz capable of sending a 640 by 480 pixel VGA JPEG image in 6 seconds.
In addition it carries high power LEDs that will be driven with 100W pulses to produce extremely bright flashes. These, it is hoped, will be observable by the unaided eye or with small binoculars. Both the 5840 MHz and optical downlinks have a high power consumption so they may only be activated when in range of the ground station in Japan. It use a neodymium magnet for attitude control.
The CubeSat will remain on the ISS until September when it will be deployed by Japanese astronaut and radio amateur Akihiko Hoshide KE5DNI using the ISS Kibo robot arm.
FITSAT-1 (NIWAKA) is mounted in a JEM-Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) with the amateur radio TechEdSat and F-1 CubeSats. In a second deployment pod are WeWish and a scientific 2U CubeSat Raiko. The CubeSats will be deployed into a 400 km orbit and should have a lifetime of 3 or 4 months before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.
In this video NHK interviews Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG and students from the Fukuoka Institute of Technology (FIT) about the project.
Watch NHK – Tiny Satellites, Big Possibilities
FITSAT-1 information, pictures and deployment movie http://www.fit.ac.jp/~tanaka/fitsat.shtml
Kibo Robot Arm http://kibo.jaxa.jp/en/about/kibo/rms/
FITSAT-1 plans to use LED’s to signal in Morse code
AMSAT-UK 
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