Tag Archives: CubeSat

Apr 22 2012

16 Japanese Educational Satellites to be Launched

Kibo Robot Arm CubeSat Deployment

Kibo Robot Arm CubeSat Deployment

Sixteen educational satellites are under construction in Japan. The first should be launched in May 2012 followed by the others over the next two years.

Horyu-2 Structural Thermal Model

HORYU-2 Structural Thermal Model

The first to launch is the amateur radio satellite HORYU-2 built by students at the Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT). The launch is on a Japanese H-IIA rocket planned for May 17 at 1639-1642 UT.

The mission aims to take pictures of the Earth using a small CMOS camera SCAMP (Surrey Camera Payload) developed by the University of Surrey, a sister university of KIT. SCAMP takes a 640×480 pixel picture in a JPEG format. From 700 km altitude, one pixel corresponds to 1.6 km.

HORYU-2 will be followed in July by the launch of the HTV3 to the International Space Station (ISS). This will deliver the JEM-Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD) along with the Japanese CubeSats WE-WISH, FITSAT-1 and RAIKO. These CubeSats should be deployed from the ISS in September using the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) robot arm.

Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG and FITSAT

Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG and FITSAT

FITSAT-1, also known as NIWAKA, will use a neodymium magnet for attitude control. It 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 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 it may be that they are only activated over Japan.

In December TSUBAME is planned to be launched on a H-IIA. It aims to have a CW beacon on 437.250 MHz and AX.25 1200/9600bps telemetry on 437.505 MHz.

The satellite blog run by Mineo Wakita JE9PEL is a good source of information on Japanese satellites, see http://tinyurl.com/JE9PEL-Satellite-Blog

The satellite blog of Nader Omer ST2NH contains a summary of Mineo’s information which is reproduced here:

Horyu-2
http://kitsat.ele.kyutech.ac.jp/what_horyu2_2.html
437.375MHz 1200bps FSK CW
——————————————————————————-

RAIKO
http://www.astro.mech.tohoku.ac.jp/RAIKO/
2U (10 cm by 10 cm by 20 cm)
——————————————————————————-

FITSAT-1
http://www.fit.ac.jp/~tanaka/fitsat.shtml
437.250MHz CW, 437.445MHz FM, 5840.00MHz High speed data
——————————————————————————

WE WISH
http://www.meisei.co.jp/news/2011/0617_622.html
IR pictures of the earth surface with 320×256 pixels
that will be downlinked in approx 110 secs using SSTV.
437.505MHz SSTV, Telemetry, CW

http://www.meisei.co.jp/english/news/2011/0617_636.html (English Version)

—————————————————————————–

STARS-II
http://stars1.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp/
437.245MHz CW (mother), 437.255MHz CW (daughter)
437.405MHz FM (mother), 437.425MHz FM (daughter)
—————————————————————————-

TeikyoSat
http://sites.google.com/site/spacesystemteikyo/Home/teikyo-sat
—————————————————————————-

Komolebi
http://www.nano-sat.org/shinshu/files/2010shinshu/09_okamoto.pdf
—————————————————————————-

KSAT2
http://leo.sci.kagoshima-u.ac.jp/~n-lab/KSAT-HP/Ksat2.html
—————————————————————————-

INVADER
http://artsat.jp/
—————————————————————————-

OPUSAT
http://www.sssrc.aero.osakafu-u.ac.jp/OPUSAT_home.html
—————————————————————————-

ITF-1
http://yui.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Mission 1 Establish human network by amateur satellite
Mission 2 Prove the ability of the micro engineered 1/20 wavelength small antenna
Mission 3 Prove the stable operation of FRAM based microcontroller and
other microcontroller in space environment
437.425 MHz
—————————————————————————-

RISING-2
http://www.astro.mech.tohoku.ac.jp/RISING-2/
—————————————————————————-

SPROUT
http://sat.aero.cst.nihon-u.ac.jp/sprout/
—————————————————————————-

UNIFORM-1
http://www.wakayama-u.ac.jp/ifes/news/20120328.html
—————————————————————————-
SOCRATES
http://www.aes.co.jp/company/
—————————————————————————-

TSUBAME
http://lss.mes.titech.ac.jp/ssp/tsubame/
437.505MHz AX.25/SRLL, 9600bps GMSK, 1200bps AFSK
437.250MHz CW
—————————————————————————-

Apr 20 2012

CubeSats: good things come in small packages

CubeSats may be small but they have big ambitions. Credit: Aalborg University

CubeSats may be small but they have big ambitions. Credit: Aalborg University

By Ben Gilliland
For the vast majority of Earth’s history it had but one satellite – the Moon – but that all changed in 1957 when, on October 4, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into Earth’s orbit.Sputnik-1 was a 58cm (23 inch) sphere that contained two 1-watt radio transmitters and three batteries (two for powering the radios and one to power a cooling fan). The 83kg aluminum sphere emitted radio signals that were transmitted back to Earth via four 2.4m-2.9m “whip” antenna.

Its radio did little more than beep at Earth, but its signal was picked up by amateur “ham radio” enthusiasts all over the world.

In many ways, Sputnik was not just the world’s first satellite, it was also the first “people’s satellite” – anyone with suitable radio equipment could listen to the plucky little satellite as, for 22 days, it whizzed around the globe at 29,000km/h (18,000mph).

Sputnik-1 kick-started the space race and the satellite industry, but was really little more than a transmitter that beeped. Credit: NASA

Sputnik-1 kick-started the space race and the satellite industry, but was really little more than a transmitter that beeped. Credit: NASA

America’s first satellite was even smaller. Launched on January 31, 1958, and weighing in at just 14kg, Explorer-1 boasted several scientific instruments including a cosmic ray detector, five temperature sensors and micrometeor detectors.But satellites didn’t stay small, simple and accessible for very long.

As they increased in complexity, so they increased in size. From the size of a beach ball, satellites were soon the size of a family cars, then buses and (in the case of the International Space Station) the size of a football field.

With increased size and complexity came increased costs.
It can take a decade and hundreds of millions of pounds to develop an Earth observation satellite – but that is just the tip of the financial iceberg. Launching a satellite weighing several tonnes into orbit can cost between £30million and £250million ($50million to $400million) and just paying for the radio bandwidth needed to get your information back to Earth can cost up to £1million ($1.6million) a year. That’s not taking into account the cost of ground operations and maintenance of the satellite.

Continue reading →

Apr 14 2012

TechEdSat – Challenge for Space Hackers – April 21-22

The International Space Apps Challenge is a 2 day technology development event, taking place April 21-22, during which citizens from around the world will work together to solve current challenges relevant to both space exploration and social need.

TechEdSat

TechEdSat

TechEdSat is an Amateur Radio CubeSat that will be launched on July 21, 2012 from Tanegashima, Japan aboard the HTV-3 ISS resupply mission. TechEdSat will be among the first CubeSats to be deployed from the ISS, and is investigating the use of Plug and Play software/hardware and intersatellite communication via Iridium and Orbcomm networks.

For this challenge, space hackers must implement a command and control system, utilizing both the OrbComm and Iridium modems as uplink and downlink. The software should be modular to facilitate the easy implementation of future commands, and should be fault tolerant.

A ground segment of the software should include the ability for a laptop (or bonus points for an Apple or Android phone) to issue commands to the spacecraft over Iridium/Orbcomm. The spacecraft segment should be written for a Linux environment able to listen for commands, and have the ability to send arbitrary data packages back to the ground.

Bonus points for relaying data received from the spacecraft automatically to Twitter.

Space hackers will be issued interface documentation for Iridium and OrbComm modems, and engineering development hardware for testing. This software has the potential to fly on the TechEdSat mission if completed.

Source: A New Command and Control Protocol for CubeSats
http://spaceappschallenge.org/challenge/new-command-and-control-protocol-cubesats/

International Space Apps Challenge http://spaceappschallenge.org/

TechEdSat to use ‘SatPhone’ http://www.uk.amsat.org/5018

Apr 12 2012

Invader CubeSat – A Student Art Satellite

ARTSAT PROJECT-1: INVADER is an amateur radio “Art Satellite” currently being developed as a part of the “ARTSAT: Art and Satellite Project” which aims at a practical use of a satellite for art and design.

Invader is a 1U CubeSat being developed by students at Tama Art University. The students say:

We would like to contribute to the amateur radio community from the view point of the Art field using this satellite. Our satellite has 3 missions:

ARTSAT Project InvaderFirst, we install some sensors to our satellite and utilize these data for Art Work. For example, by creating the Lightning Equipment which changes color according to the satellite temperature data and distributing to people, we try to make more people get interested in satellite and amateur radio.

Second, we install a small camera (150*150pixels) for acquiring the Earth image for utilizing in Art Work.

Third, we install a Digi-Talker, which transmits voice data using FM. We plan to transmit sensor data using the Digi-Talker.

Three UHF downlinks are proposed including one CW beacon, one 1k2 AFSK data transmission and one FM Voice transmitter.

A launch is planned from Tanegashima into a 400km circular orbit with 65 deg inclination in 2014 on the same H-IIA launcher as STARS-II, TeikyouSat-3, KSAT2, OPUSAT, ITF-1.

ARTSAT Project in Google English http://tinyurl.com/ARTSAT

ARTSAT Press Release http://artsat.jp/wp-content/uploads/docs/press_release_en.pdf

Tama Art University in Google English http://tinyurl.com/TamaArtUniversity

IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Status Pages http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/

Apr 12 2012

Student HRBE Amateur Radio CubeSat in SatMagazine

SatMagazine April 2012

SatMagazine April 2012

The student built Hiscock Radiation Belt Explorer (HRBE) amateur radio CubeSat formerly known as Explorer-1 [PRIME] is featured on page 10 of the April issue of SatMagazine.

In the article SatMagazine says:

The Montana State University (MSU) satellite that rode into space on a NASA rocket has now gathered information longer than the historic U.S. satellite it was built to honor, said the director of MSU’s Space Science and Engineering Laboratory (SSEL).

Almost four months after the October 28 launch, and shortly after learning that NASA had selected another MSU satellite for possible launch on a NASA rocket next year, SSEL Director David Klumpar [KD7MFJ] cheered as he suddenly realized that Montana’s only satellite had collected data for 111 days as of February 15. Since then, the satellite has well surpassed the entire 111-day mission of its history-making predecessor, Explorer-1, the first successful U.S. satellite.

On the HRBE site the team say “A special thanks goes to all of the HAM operators that have been listening into beacons and sending us the data. Data Submissions from HAM Operators have comprised of almost half of the data we have collected so far and has become a vital part in monitoring the health and systems of HRBE.”

Download the April issue of SatMagazine from http://www.satmagazine.com/2012/SM_Apr2012.pdf

SatMagazine http://www.satmagazine.com/

HRBE (Explorer-1 [PRIME] ) https://ssel.montana.edu/

How to receive the 437.505 MHz LSB Amateur Radio Cubesat E-1P / HRBE http://www.uk.amsat.org/2446

Apr 10 2012

CubeSats at the Naval Postgraduate School

Researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) hope to get one of their own CubeSats into space for the first time on the Operationally Unique Technologies Satellite (OUTSat) mission slated for launch, along with 10 other CubeSats, in August 2012.

At 19:08 into the following video is a segment that covers the two NPS projects that are scheduled to head to space in August of this year. One is a CubeSat, a small satellite destined for Low Earth Orbit, and the other, the NPS CubeSat Launcher or NPSCuL, is the payload platform that will carry it there.

Watch INSIDE NPS April 2012

NPS CubeSat Prepares to See Space By Way of New Payload Platform
http://www.nps.edu/About/News/NPS-CubeSat-Prepares-to-See-Space-By-Way-of-New-Payload-Platform-.html