Tag Archives: Ham Radio

Feb 17 2012

Vega Launch Success – Satellite Signals Heard

Lift off of Vega

Lift off of Vega - Image Credit ESA

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

A recording of PW-Sat made by Wouter Weggelaar PA3WEG at 1207 UT can be heard at http://www.pa3weg.nl/pa3weg/recordings/PW-SAT%20recording%20PA3WEG%2013-02-2012_1207UTC.mp3

In the Czech Republic Mirek Kasal OK2AQ received strong signals from Masat-1 http://www.urel.feec.vutbr.cz/esl/files/Othact/masat1_rev5.wav

Nittin Muttin VU3TYG received PW-Sat at 1246 UT as it travelled over India, his recording is at http://vu3tyg.addr.com/pwsat/pw_sat-%20Feb%2013th.mp3

In Sudan Nader ST2NH received signals from AlmaSat-1 and Masat-1.

KO4MA Screenshot of Vega CubeSats

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.

Watch the launch of Vega VV01

The Masat-1 satellite team have made available software to decode their 437.345 MHz telemetry data via a PC sound card. The software can be downloaded from http://cubesat.bme.hu/en/foldi-allomas/kliens-szoftver/

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

Satscape Free Satellite Tracking Software http://www.satscape.info/home/?q=node/2 

Preliminary Vega TLE’s for launch at 1000 UT here

Website URLs for the student satellite are at http://www.uk.amsat.org/4180

ESA report Student CubeSats start talking to Earth

IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel hosted by AMSAT-UK http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/

Feb 17 2012

Khartoum Students Receive CubeSats

KN-SAT1 students at ST2UOK Khartoum

KN-SAT1 students at ST2UOK Khartoum

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

KN-Sat1 http://cubesat.uofk.edu/

Sudanese Amateur Radio and SWL History http://www.st2nh.com/sudanamateurradioandswlhistory

ST2NH Blog http://st2nh-blogger.blogspot.com/

Feb 16 2012

FUNcube group exceeds 3000 members

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch Rev4 20100609

AMSAT-UK FUNcube Mission Patch

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.

You can join the FUNcube Yahoo Group at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube/

More information on the FUNcube satellite project is at http://FUNcube.org.uk/overview/

For information on the FUNcube Dongle SDR see http://www.FUNcubeDongle.com/

FUNcube information for schools Teach Space with a real satellite

Feb 16 2012

Solving the TLE lottery

TLEsWhen 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.

Read Mike’s full article with pictures on his website at http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=26038

Feb 15 2012

NASA Announces Third Round Of CubeSat Space Mission Candidates

Roland Coelho WH7BE Research Associate at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a CubeSat - Image Credit NASA

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

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/

Source NASA

AMSAT Fox-1 Amateur Radio CubeSat selected for NASA ELaNa launch collaboration http://www.uk.amsat.org/4558

Feb 12 2012

Open Mission Control Software for Satellite & Balloon Projects

Open Mission Control

Open Mission Control

Open Mission Control is open source, open access software for monitoring and controlling small spacecraft or balloon projects.

The software is designed to provide an application and framework that can be adapted quickly and easily to support a variety of spacecraft including CubeSats, myPocketQubs and NanoLab experiments, and sounding rocket and high altitude balloon experiments.

The team include students, space professionals, educators and enthusiasts from around the world, all working together to build a great mission control application for small spacecraft projects.

The Open Mission Control framework consists of the application and graphical user interface which contain the basic structure of the program, and the Open Mission Control toolbox, which provides a number of ready to use functions typically required for mission control applications.

The Open Mission Control application and graphical user interface can be adapted to a project quickly and easily, by populating them with elements from the Open Mission Control toolbox and other standard library elements. This approach allows also users with limited programming experience to create sophisticated mission control software by building on a solid basic implementation.

Designed to work with any spacecraft project, the first flight mission that is expected to use Open Mission Control is myPocketQub442. Developed by UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UKSEDS) myPocketQub442 was selected to fly as a pocket spacecraft attached to UKube-1, the first United Kingdom Space Agency CubeSat. It is expected to be the first mission controlled by Open Mission Control and to demonstrate and verify various use cases:

+ The first use case is for professional monitoring, command and control of a real spacecraft.

+ The second use case involves schools and universities using Open Mission Control to upload their virtual payloads for their OpenSpace365 projects, monitor their experiments as they run and download the data for analysis.

+ The third use case involves the use of Open Mission Control as monitoring software for the various scientific and engineering sub-payloads that will fly on myPocketQub442. The students conducting these experiments will use Open Mission Control to access and store the data from these payload experiments for analysis and research.

+ The fourth use case is communication with engineering models of the real spacecraft which will be made available on the Internet. These engineering models are duplicates of the flight hardware and allow Open Mission Control to command and monitor them and their sub-payloads in real time and to simulate different critical mission phases under real conditions.

Additional information and links are available on the Open Mission Control webpage at: http://openmissioncontrol.wordpress.com/