OSCAR Number Administrator Bill Tynan, W3XO reports,
“Congratulations on the successful launch of the MaSat-1 Cubesat that the team at Budapest University of Technology and Economics have been responsible for designing, building and testing.
“Since you have met all of the requirements for being issued an OSCAR number, including coordination through IARU and requesting an OSCAR number, I, under authority vested in me by the President of AMSAT-NA, do hereby name MaSat-1 as MagyarSat-OSCAR-72 or MO-72.”
Bill concludes, “I, and all at AMSAT-NA wish MagyarSat-OSCAR-72 great success in fulfilling all of its mission objectives.”
The first Vega, flight VV01, lifted off at 1000 UT Monday, February 13 from the ESA Spaceport at Kourou in the Caribbean carrying eight student built amateur radio satellites and the LARES Laser Relativity Satellite into orbit.
LARES was put into a 1435 by 1452 km 69.5 degree inclination orbit, while the orbit of the amateur radio satellites is 310 by 1441 km.
At 1153 UT Drew Glasbrenner KO4MA reported hearing signals from the satellites as they went past Florida. Signals were first heard in the United Kingdom at around 1207 UT.
In Germany Mike Repprecht DK3WN copied the satellites at an elevation of just 3 degress at 1209 UT, see http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?cat=83
In Sudan Nader ST2NH received signals from AlmaSat-1 and Masat-1.
KO4MA Screenshot of Vega CubeSats
As of Monday evening signals had been reported from AlmaSat-1, Goliat, Masat-1, PW-Sat, UniCubeSat and XaTcobeo.
All the Vega amateur radio satellite project teams used the IARU amateur satellite frequency coordination panel service. A benefit of IARU coordination was that all the different UHF satellite signals could be simultaneously captured within the typical 192 kHz bandwidth of a modern Software Defined Radio (SDR).
PW-Sat is the only satellite with a downlink in the 145 MHz band. Its 1200bps BPSK signal on 145.900 MHz is receiveable with an SSB radio and an omni-directional antenna.
When PW-Sat has finished its primary scientific mission it will be reconfigured as a 435/145 MHz FM to DSB transponder for general amateur radio communications. The FM to Double Sideband transponder was first pioneered by amateurs on the satellite AO-16.
PW-Sat carries a deployable drag augmentation device known as the tail. The main objective of this experiment is to test the concept of using atmospheric drag to deorbit the satellite. It is hoped to be able to remove the satellite from orbit at a predicted time, about one year after launch.
The other amateur radio satellites have downlinks in 437 MHz. A small 430 MHz band Yagi antenna may be used to receive the signals. They are expected to have a lifetime of 3-4 years depending on the atmospheric drag which is higher at sunspot maximum.
This video shows the eliptical 310 by 1441 km orbit of the satellites.
The prelimary TLEs, used by tracking software to predict the orbits, were generated by a team lead by Paolo Tortora at the University of Bologna in Italy. They proved to be accurate with the satellites appearing at the expected time.
Student amateur radio satellite downlink frequencies:
(Worst case Doppler shift during pass +/-9 kHz at 437 MHz and +/- 3 kHz at 145 MHz)
+ AlmaSat-1 437.465 MHz 1200 bps FSK, 2407.850 MHz
+ E-St@r 437.445 MHz 1200 bps AFSK
+ Goliat 437.485 MHz 1200 bpx AFSK
+ Masat-1 437.345 MHz 625/1250 bps GFSK, CW
+ PW-Sat 145.900 MHz 1200 bps BPSK AX25, CW
+ Robusta 437.325 MHz? (website says now 437.350 MHz) 1200 bps FM telemetry – one data burst of 20 secs every 1 min
+ UniCubeSat 437.305 MHz 9600 bps FSK
+ XaTcobeo 437.365 MHz FFSK with AX.25
Students at the University of Khartoum, Sudan have been eagerly listening for the new amateur radio satellites deployed by the Vega launcher on Monday, Feb 13.
The students are undertaking a CubeSat project KN-SAT1. As part of the project they recently completed the installation of a satellite groundstation at ST2UOK. This was used to track and receive telemetry data from the Vega satellites.
KN-SAT1 is the first CubeSat to be built in Sudan and an aim is to promote space engineering and space science education at other Sudanese educational institutes.
Watch the students receiving packets from Masat-1 14:00 UTC Feb 14, 2012
In just 16 months the AMSAT-UK FUNcube Yahoo Group has exceeded a membership of 3000.
The group was created by Rob Styles M0TFO at the end of October 2010 to provide support for the AMSAT-UK FUNcube satellite and the FUNcube Dongle VHF/UHF Software Defined Radio.
The FUNcube satellite project is an educational CubeSat project with the goal of enthusing and educating young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. It will support the educational Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) initiatives and provide an additional resource for the RSGB GB4FUN Radio Communications Demonstration Module. The target audience is school pupils in the 8-18 age range.
As well as providing a strong 145 MHz telemetry beacon for the pupils to receive FUNcube will also have a 435/145 MHz linear transponder for Amateur Radio SSB/CW use.
The FUNcube Dongle VHF/UHF SDR was originally developed for educational outreach as part of the ground segment for the FUNcube satellite. However, it was realised it can be used for many other applications as well, so AMSAT-UK developed a Pro version which has a frequency range of 64-1700 MHz.
Similar to a USB TV Dongle, the FCD simply fits into a computer USB port and can be used with freely available Software Defined Radio software. The FCD is all-mode which this means that as well as data, it will also receive many other signals including AM, FM, SSB and CW. It can even receive weather satellite pictures.
When amateur radio satellites are initially deployed Two Line Elements (TLE) Keplerian orbital data sets for tracking the satellites are released by NORAD. Unfortunately they are only given object identifiers of A, B, C, D etc not satellite names. Some of the debris from the launch and deployment may also be given alphabetic identifiers. The problem is working out which of the 10 or more objects is the satellite you want to listen to.
Mike DK3WN has developed a simple solution to this perennial problem by using an SDR-IQ receiver and a bit of software.
In the case of Masat-1 he chose a high elevation pass (89 deg) where the doppler shift should be significant and recorded the complete pass with his SDR-IQ without doppler correction. With some software he simulated the entire pass with different TLE’s.
He then chose the TLE that best matched the doppler shift of the audio signal.
Roland Coelho WH7BE Research Associate at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a CubeSat - Image Credit NASA
NASA has selected 33 small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2013 and 2014. The proposed CubeSats come from universities across the country, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, NASA field centers and Department of Defense organizations.
CubeSats are a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. The cube-shaped satellites are approximately 10 cm long, have a volume of about one litre and weigh less than 1.3 kg.
The selections are from the third round of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. After launch, the satellites will conduct technology demonstrations, educational research or science missions. The selected spacecraft are eligible for flight after final negotiations and an opportunity for flight becomes available. The satellites come from the following organizations:
— Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
— Air Force Research Lab, Wright-Patterson AFB
— California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
— Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
— Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
— Montana State University, Bozeman
— Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. (2 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
— NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
— NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (2 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.
— The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, Silver Spring, Md.
— Saint Louis University, St. Louis
— Salish Kootenai College, Pablo, Mont.
— Space and Missile Defense Command, Huntsville, Ala. (2 CubeSats)
— Taylor University, Upland, Ind.
— University of Alabama, Huntsville
— University of California, Berkeley
— University of Colorado, Boulder (2 CubeSats)
— University of Hawaii, Manoa (3 CubeSats)
— University of Illinois, Urbana (2 CubeSats)
— University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
— University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D.
— University of Texas, Austin
— US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.
— Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg
Thirty-two CubeSat missions have been selected for launch in the previous two rounds of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. Eight CubeSat missions have been launched (including five selected via the CubeSat Launch Initiative) to date via the agency’s Launch Services Program Educational Launch of Nanosatellite, or ELaNa, program.
For additional information on NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative program, visit: http://go.usa.gov/Qbf
AMSAT-UK 
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