PicoDragon is a 1U CubeSat that was deployed from the International Space Station on November 19.
It was developed by the Việt Nam National Satellite Center (VNSC), University of Tokyo and IHI aerospace.
The satellite, callsign XV9PID, carries a 100mW CW beacon on 437.250 MHz (+/- 10 kHz Doppler shift). It is understood there is also a 1200 bps AFSK 800mW AX.25 telemetry beacon that can operate on 437.365 MHz and a camera for Earth imaging.
PicoDragon was deployed from the ISS with two other CubeSats ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-x
Nam Dương writes:
I’m member of PicoDragon Project also known as PDG. We found that the PicoDragon is a very weak signal when in darkness (eclipse), and strong signal when in sunlight. If you have a ground station, please help us to recover the 437.250 MHz CW signal of PDG. We want to recover the CW signal both when it is in eclipse and in daylight.
If you have any comment or information for PDG, please send it to my email pdg<at>vnsc.org.vn or post to the PDG Facebook page.
Thank you so much.
Welcome to PicoDragon Project, and welcome to Việt Nam.
Astronaut Koichi Wakata KC5ZTA deployed the CubeSats ArduSat-1, ArduSat-X along with Pico Dragon from the International Space Station at 1218 UT on Tuesday, November 19.
An exploded view of the ArduSat (1U configuration)
Pico Dragon was developed by the Việt Nam National Satellite Center (VNSC), University of Tokyo and IHI aerospace. It has a 437.250 MHz CW beacon and 437.365 MHz 1200 bps AFSK AX.25 telemetry.
Mineo Wakita JE9PEL has received the CW signal from Việt Nam’s Pico Dragon CubeSat but nothing was heard from ArduSat-1 or ArduSat-X.
The Pico Dragon beacon has been reported as appearing about 3 kHz high of the expected frequency.
Edward BX1AD reports hearing ArduSat-1: I heard ArduSat-1 CW (FM-modulated 800Hz tone) on 437.000 MHz during the pass 01:51 – 02:00 UT Nov. 20, decoded as following:
WG9XFC-1 D16
WG9XFC-1 E16
WG9XFC-1 A7.27
Watch the launch of PicoDragon and the ArduSat CubeSats
The ArduSat team have released the following information:
If you’re a radio amateur and would like to help out the ArduSat team, you can listen for our Morse beacons and send them to us! This beacon gives us important information – like battery voltage and lets us know that the satellites are still alive!
Both satellites will have a Morse beacon (FM-modulated 800Hz tones) that is transmitted at 20 WPM every two or three minutes on 437.000 MHz. The beacon will be structured in the following format:
ArduSat-1, ArduSat-X and PicoDragon deploy from the ISS
ArduSat-1 beacon: Battery voltage (uint16_t), RX_counter (number of received valid data packets, uint32_t), TX_counter (number of sent valid data packets, uint32_t), “WG9XFC-1″
ArduSat-X beacon: Battery voltage (uint16_t), RX_counter (number of received valid data packets, uint32_t), TX_counter (number of sent valid data packets, uint32_t), “WG9XFC-X”
Submitting a beacon packet:
You can submit a beacon as plain text to nanosatisfi@gmail.com – be sure to put the word “packet” in the subject line so that we can parse it quickly.
Submitting audio:
You can submit audio as an email attachment. Send an email to nanosatisfi@gmail.com – with the audio file as an attachment.
PicoDragon is a 1U CubeSat project intended to take low resolution Earth images and to test on-board systems.
It is planning to use two amateur radio downlinks and frequencies for these have been coordinated by the IARU. The 100mW CW beacon will be on 437.250 MHz and a 1k2 bps AFSK 800mW AX.25 telemetry downlink on 437.365 MHz. Commands will be uplinked on VHF.
AMSAT-UK 
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