Tag Archives: Amateur Radio

Jan 7 2012

Triton-1 and Triton-2

Dnepr_rocket_lift-off

A DNEPR Lift-Off

Triton-1 and Triton-2 are expected to launch in late 2012 on a DNEPR from Yasny together with UKube-1, Delfi n3Xt, Trio-Cinema 1 & 2 and other spacecraft using frequencies in the amateur satellite service.

They are 3U Cubesats and each carries a radio science mission that aims to test an experimental advanced AIS (Automatic Identification System) receiver.

Telemetry decoding software will be made available which will allow radio amateur operators to listen to periodic downlink broadcasts containing housekeeping telemetry, payload telemetry as well as received AIS messages.

Triton-1 telemetry downlinks will be 9k6 RC-BPSK on VHF(145MHz). It includes two similar secondary amateur radio payloads, being two single channel mode U/V (435-145MHz) FM to DSB transponders. The following downlink frequencies have been coordinated for Triton-1: Main Downlink 145.815MHz & Backup Downlink 145.860MHz. Possibly (power budget permitting), both transponders may be switched on at the same time.

Triton-2 telemetry downlinks will be 9k6 RC-BPSK on VHF(145MHz) and 38k4 RC-BPSK on S Band (2400MHz). The satellite includes two secondary amateur radio payloads:

– A single channel mode U/V (435-145MHz) FM to DSB transponder.
– A single channel mode U/S (435-2400MHz) FM to FM transponder.

The following downlink frequencies have been coordinated for Triton-2: Main Downlink 145.860MHz & Backup Downlink 145.815MHz. The S-band downlink will be 2408.00MHz. Possibly (power budget permitting), both payloads may be switched on at the same time.

Mission duration
Science mission: 3 Months
Amateur radio mission: as long as possible after the science mission finishes.

AIS – E-Navigation http://www.efficiensea.org/files/conferenceproceedings.pdf

ISIS PowerPoint slides http://www.space-lt.eu/failai/Prezentacijos/Abe%20Bonnema_Developing%20and%20Launching%20CubeSat%20Missions.pdf

IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination

Jan 7 2012

CubeSats Feature in Sat Magazine

The January issue of the free publication Sat Magazine covers a number of amateur radio satellites.

On pages 54-65 is an article about Small Satellites. Among the many amateur radio satellites mentioned are FITSAT-1, WE WISH, the Vega CubeSats, QB50, AubieSat-1, Prime Explorer-1, FASTRAC.and ARISSat-1/KEDR. The AMSAT-India 435/145MHz Linear Transponder is also mentioned.

Download the January Sat Magazine from http://www.satmagazine.com/2012/SM_Jan_2012.pdf

Sat Magazine http://www.satmagazine.com/

Jan 5 2012

FUNcube at Association for Science Education Conference

Graham Shirville G3VZV on AMSAT-UK Stand at ASE

Graham Shirville G3VZV on the AMSAT-UK Stand

The 3 day Association for Science Education Conference opened in Liverpool on Thursday, January 5.

AMSAT-UK have a stand at the conference to show the potential of the FUNcube satellite as a teaching tool.

The FUNcube project aims to boost young people’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

When FUNcube-1 is launched this Autumn school students will be able to receive the satellite data stream which contains telemetry — things like battery voltages and solar panel currents — and from this they’ll be able to deduce things like the spin rate of the satellite, and what happens to temperatures when it goes into or out of eclipse.

Additionally students will be able to send, via a moderator, ‘Fitter’ (as in ‘FUNcube Twitter’) messages of 200 characters to the satellite.  FUNcube-1 will then transmit them down to Earth on its 1200 bps BPSK beacon.

The event takes place at the University of Liverpool from January 5-7. Admission to the exhibition is free, details at http://www.ase.org.uk/

 

Jan 4 2012

FUNcube-1 ZDNET Article

Jim Heck G3WGM on an AMSAT-UK Stand

Jim Heck G3WGM

Journalist David Meyer interviewed AMSAT-UK’s Jim Heck G3WGM for an article on the FUNcube-1 satellite being built by AMSAT-UK volunteers.

School students will be able to send, via a moderator, ‘Fitter’ (as in ‘FUNcube Twitter’) messages of 200 characters to the CubeSat. FUNcube-1 will then transmit them on the 1200 bps BPSK beacon.

Read the article at http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/emerging-tech/2012/01/04/radio-amateurs-prep-launch-of-tiny-funcube-satellite-40094737/

The satellite will carry a 500 milliwatt 435 to 145 MHz linear transponder for SSB and CW communications.

FUNcube – Launch details and time frame finalised

FUNcube to be on show at the Association for Science Education conference Jan 5-7, 2012

Jan 4 2012

ARISSat-1 SK

ARISSat-1 Logo

The amateur radio satellite ARISSat-1, deployed from the ISS on August 3, fell silent on Wednesday, January 4, as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

The ARISSat website shows the last telemetry was captured at 06:02:14 UTC on Jan. 4  with these temperatures:

IHU PCB    75°C
PSU     76°C
RF     88°C
Batt     55°C
RF Enc 67°C

The full telemetry data can be seen at http://www.arissat1.org/

Mike Repprecht DK3WN reports that Tetsurou Satou JA0CAW captured telemetry at 05:59 UTC. Mike says it’s remarkable that the last voice message heard was from Yuri Gagarin. See the last data on Mike’s SatBlog http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=25125 The JA0CAW Blog in Google English is at http://tinyurl.com/74q5o6g

Konstantin Vladimirovich RN3ZF listened for the satellite at 08:42 UTC using an AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle with WRplus. On the FUNcube Yahoo Group he says “the telemetry was absent, voice messages were not legible, very silent and interrupted. Most likely, I saw last minutes in the life of the satellite.” He continued monitoring but did not detect any further signals from the satellite. He has made available his final ARISSat-1 recordings in WRPlus format at:
http://doris.kiev.ua/rn3zf/kedr/
http://doris.kiev.ua/rn3zf/kedr/WRplus_20120104_084230Z_145940kHz.wav
http://doris.kiev.ua/rn3zf/kedr/WRplus_20120104_085129Z_145940kHz.wav
Note the files are large.

Education has been a large part of the ARISSat project and on the FUNcube Yahoo Group Simon Kennedy G0FCU says he was glad he was able to receive good signals and SSTV pictures last week for his daughter to take to school as part of her project on Space.

Listen to a recording by Mineo Wakita JE9PEL made at 01:22-01:27 UTC, Jan 4, 2012, Ele 7 W-WN-N, 145.950MHz FM over Japan when it would have been at an altitude of about 175 km http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/20104ar2.mp3

A graph showing the descent of ARISSat-1 can be seen at http://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/arissat.htm#r 

SSTV pictures taken by ARISSat-1 can be seen at http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/SSTV/

AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/maillist/

Dec. 30 – ARISSat-1 Getting Hotter: http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/12/30/arissat-1-getting-hotter/

Jan 3 2012

FUNcube – Launch details and time frame finalised

FUNcube_Graphic_Large

Artists impression of FUNcube in space

An agreement has now been reached with ISIS Launch Services BV, who are based in Delft in the Netherlands, for them to provide a launch of the FUNcube-1 CubeSat.

It is anticipated that FUNcube-1, which has been created by a team of volunteer radio amateurs and other specialists over the past two years, will be launched with a number of other spacecraft from a DNEPR rocket sometime in the third quarter of 2012. The flight is planned to take place from the Yasny launch facility which is in southern Russia near to the Kazakhstan border. The spacecraft needs to be completed by the end of July 2012, ready for shipping from the Netherlands to Russia.

The orbit is still to be defined precisely but it is expected to be nearly circular and approximately sun synchronous. This will ensure that the spacecraft has the necessary solar illumination and that it will appear at regular times for educational outreach activities at schools and colleges.

The FUNcube-1 spacecraft will transmit signals that can be easily received directly by schools and colleges for educational outreach purposes. This telemetry will give details of the spacecraft’s health – battery voltages and temperatures and from this it will be possible to determine its spin rate and attitude by plotting simple graphs. Additionally, experimental data and messages can be displayed in an attractive format and provide stimulation and encouragement for students to become interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects in a unique way.

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch Rev4 20100609

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch

The target audience for this project is students at both primary and secondary levels and a simple and cheap “ground station” – actually it looks just like a USB dongle, for schools to use, has already been developed.

In addition to providing educational outreach for schools and colleges around the world, the spacecraft will also provide a U/V linear transponder for radio amateurs during local “night”, at weekends and during holiday periods

The production and testing of the spacecraft itself has already been funded via a legacy and other sources. It will however really help the project if radio amateurs and other interested supporters could contribute something towards the cost of the actual launch itself. With this in mind a special donation scheme has been setup using the Virgin Giving charity donation website http://tinyurl.com/funcubegiving/

All donations of £25 (or equivalent) or more will be specially acknowledged by the spacecraft itself – exact details will follow shortly!

All donations received from UK tax payers can be “Gift Aided” which will add 20% to the value of your donation.

More information about this exciting project will be made available over the coming months at the website http://www.funcube.org.uk/

FUNcube to be on show at the Association for Science Education conference Jan 5-7, 2012