Tag Archives: CubeSat

Apr 22 2013

Vega’s three-satellite payload is integrated and ready for launch

Vega April 2013ESA report the payload “stack” for Vega’s second mission from  has been completed and is ready for the planned launch from Kourou on May 2.

After its deployment by Vega on the upcoming flight, Proba-V will begin the satellite’s mission of mapping land cover and vegetation growth across the Earth every two days. The miniaturized ESA satellite is to provide data for the instrument’s worldwide scientific user community and service providers once its in-orbit commissioning is completed.

Proba-V was produced by prime contractor QinetiQ Space Belgium and carries a new, advanced version of the Vegetation instrument – the latest in a series already deployed on France’s full-sized Spot-4 and Spot-5 satellites, which have been observing the planet since 1998 after their launches by Arianespace.

The Astrium-built VNREDSat-1 will support the Vietnamese government’s initiative to create an infrastructure enabling better studies of climate change effects, improving predictions for natural disasters and optimizing the country’s natural resource management.  It was built on behalf of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

ESTCube-1 is to test electric solar wind sail technologies and help establish an Estonian infrastructure for future space projects. This satellite was produced in a collaboration of students from Tartu University, Estonian Aviation Academy, Tallinn University of Technology and University of Life Sciences – and developed in conjunction with the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the German Space Center (DLR).

Once in orbit, ESTCube-1 will deploy a small conductive tether which is to be electrically charged to 500 Volts using electron guns contained within the 10 x 10 x 10-cm. cubesat.

ESTCube-1 frequencies:
437.250 MHz – CW beacon, callsign ES5E/S
437.505 MHz – 9600 bps AX.25 telemetry, callsign ES5E-11

Read the full ESA story at http://www.arianespace.com/news-mission-update/2013/1031.asp

Apr 22 2013

PhoneSat CubeSats with Ham Radio Payloads Launched

Antares Rocket Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Antares Rocket Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Three PhoneSat CubeSats with amateur radio payloads were launched on an Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares(TM) rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in eastern Virginia on Sunday, April 21.

The three PhoneSats carry amateur radio payloads on 437.425 MHz, each transmits at intervals so all three are receivable during a pass. Roland Zurmely PY4ZBZ received them on the second orbit on April 21 at 22:52 UT, see http://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/phs.htm and Mike Rupprecht DK3WN reported receiving all three on Monday April 22, see http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=32755

The callsign of all three satellites is KJ6KRW and they transmit using AFSK (1200 bps) modulation, AX.25 packet coding. The two PhoneSat 1.0 satellites, Graham and Bell, transmit with a periodicity of respectively 28 seconds and 30 seconds. The PhoneSat 2.0 beta satellite, Alexandre, transmits with a periodicity of 25 seconds.

Watch PhoneSat: Small Satellites Use Smart Phones For Brains

PhoneSat was chosen as one of the winners in the Aerospace category for the Popular Science magazine “Best of What’s New 2012″ awards. The PhoneSat is a technology demonstration mission consisting of three 1U CubeSats intended to prove that a smartphone can be used to perform many of the functions required of a spacecraft bus.

The satellite is built around the Nexus smartphone which will be running the Android operating system and will be enclosed in a standard 1U CubeSat structure. The main function of the phone is to act as the Onboard Computer, but the mission will also utilize the phone’s SD card for data storage, 5MP camera for Earth Observation, and 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis magnetometer for attitude determination.

One of the nanosatellites, powered by the HTC Nexus One smartphone, will send back pictures of Earth. The other two, running on the Samsung Nexus S, will have two-way S-band radio allowing them to be controlled from Earth.

The satellites have no solar cells and operate on battery only so will only have a lifetime of about a week,

An updated website with telemetry info is now available.
http://www.phonesat.org/packets.php

The Antares launch included the commercial DOVE-1 satellite, a technology development experiment that is believed to be using 2420 MHz.

PhoneSat http://www.phonesat.org/

Preliminary TLEs / ‘Keps’ are at http://phonesat.org/phonesat.txt
TLEs / ‘Keps’ for recent launches http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/tle-new.txt

Check the AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) for the latest information http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/maillist/

Thanks to AMSAT News Service (ANS), AMSAT-NA, AMSAT-UK and Samudra Haque N3RDX / S21X for the above information.

Apr 21 2013

CubeSats with Ham Radio Payloads Deployed

CubeSat deployment pods on top of the Bion-M1 spacecraft BeeSat-2, BeeSat-3 and SOMP are in the three 1U Launchers in the front OSSI-1 is a 1U and alone in a 3U-Pod behind left DOVE-2 is a 3U Cubesat and fills the 3U-Pod behind right

CubeSat deployment pods on top of the Bion-M1 spacecraft
BeeSat-2, BeeSat-3 and SOMP are in the three 1U Launchers in the front
OSSI-1 is a 1U and alone in a 3U-Pod behind left
DOVE-2 is a 3U Cubesat and fills the 3U-Pod behind right

The BeeSat-2, BeeSat-3 and SOMP CubeSats carrying amateur radio payloads were deployed from the Bion-M1 spacecraft on Sunday, April 21.

Signals from BeeSat-2 and SOMP have been received by Mike Rupprecht DK3WN, see

SOMP CW beacon active http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=32685

BeeSat-2 CW beacon active http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=32683

Satellite        Downlink                Mode
———-       —————          ——————
OSSI-1        145.980/437.525   CW and 1200bps FSK AX.25
SOMP         437.485               1200, 9600bps BPSK
BEESAT-2   435.950               4800bps GMSK Mobitex
BEESAT-3   435.950               4800bps GMSK Mobitex
Bion-M1      Biological research satellite
AIST           Russian student microsatellite that aims to measure the Earth’s geomagnetic field (435 MHz downlink, 145 MHz command uplink)
Dove-2        Commercial technology demonstration mission (450 MHz band downlink)

Further information at https://amsat-uk.org/2013/04/17/soyuz-cubesat-launch/

Keps / TLE’s:

BEESAT-2
1 99999U BEESAT-2 13111.50000000 -.00000022  00000-0 -18943-5 0 00009
2 99999 065.0052 026.5594 0011818 218.6713 261.0081 14.97601851000171
BEESAT-3
1 99998U BEESAT-3 13111.50000000 -.00000022  00000-0 -18943-5 0 00009
2 99998 065.0052 026.5594 0011818 218.6713 261.0081 14.97601851000170
Apr 21 2013

‘Bring Your Own Board’ CubeSat Workshop July 19

Surrey Space Centre University of Surrey, Guildford

Surrey Space Centre
University of Surrey, Guildford

Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and AMSAT-UK invite anyone with CubeSat equipment to a ‘Bring Your Own Board’ (BYOB) workshop. The aims are to demonstrate your latest CubeSat developments, to foster new partnerships and links within the UK and EU community, and encouraging more interaction with AMSAT-UK and the Colloquium (more info at: https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/colloquium-2013/).

Poster Stands (if required)

Poster Stands (if required)

The workshop is free to attend or present. Opening times are 9 AM to 4 PM, after which there will be the AMSAT-UK Satellite Beginners Session. There will be ad-hoc tours to SSC’s new cleanroom, ground-station, and CubeSat experimentation facilities.

Information for Demonstrators:
• Must have working hardware for demonstrating to visitors, i.e. TRL 5-6 and above.
• Provide a 1 slide overview of their developments & how it can benefit new UK missions for public show.
• A 1.5 m table, power and 1 m poster area will be provided.

Sign up: If you are interested in attending or demonstrating, please contact Dr Chris Bridges M6OBC to guarantee you a table and to estimate numbers.
Email: c.p.bridges@surrey.ac.uk, Tel: +44 (0)1483 689137, Surrey Space Centre, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, U.K. Website: http://www.surrey.ac.uk/ssc

Download poster here.

Key Dates for your diary:
UK Space Agency Conference: 16-17 July 2013
Bring Your Own Boards Workshop: 19 July 2013
AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2013: 20-21 July 2013

STRaND-1 Engineering Model and Cleanroom

STRaND-1 Engineering Model and Cleanroom

Apr 20 2013

ESTCube-1 – Estonia’s First CubeSat

ESTCube-1 - Image credit University of Tartu

ESTCube-1 – Image credit University of Tartu

Estonia’s first CubeSat ESTCube-1, amateur radio callsign ES5E/S, is planning to launch from Kourou in the Caribbean on May 4 at 0206 UT on an ESA VEGA rocket. Watch the launch live.

Built by students at the University of Tartu ESTCube-1 the main mission of the satellite is to test electric solar wind sail technology, a novel space propulsion technology that could revolutionize transportation within the solar system. It will deploy a 10 meter conductive electrodynamic tether and the force interacting with the tether will be measured.

The technology is based on the electrostatic interaction between the electric field generated by the satellite and the high-speed particles being ejected from the Sun.  A spacecraft utilizing this method would first deploy a set of electrically charged wires, which allow to generate an electric field over a large area. This area effectively forms a “sail” that can be pushed by the charged particles by being diverted by it and therefore transferring momentum to the craft.

The team also aim to capture images of Estonia for outreach purposes.

The IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel have published these frequencies for ESTCube-1
437.250 MHz – CW beacon, callsign ES5E/S
437.505 MHz – 9600 bps AX.25 telemetry, callsign ES5E-11

Watch Estonian’s ESTCube-1

Electric solar wind sail http://www.electric-sailing.fi/

EstCube http://www.estcube.eu/en/home

Wiki EstCube-1 http://tinyurl.com/WikiESTCube-1

Apr 20 2013

Nanosatellite Launch Adapter System

The first Nanosatellite Launch Adapter System, or NLAS has been shipped for integration for a launch expected in late 2013.

Right now, nanosatellites can be deployed only in small numbers by rocket or from the International Space Station. But NLAS, developed by the Ames Research Center, can hold up to 24 cube satellites, opening up opportunities for smaller research projects to access space.

NLAS is expected to be used by NASA, other government agencies, and commercial entities.

Watch Nanosatellite Launcher