The RAX-2 beacon stopped transmitting on Saturday, April 20 and is not responsive to normal commands.
The cessation in normal operations happened mid-day on Saturday and the cause of the issue is currently under investigation. Over the next few days, the team will be recording the spectrum during passes and sending up some custom commands in an attempt to determine the cause.
RAX-2 has been operating on-orbit for 540 days, has completed its scientific goals, and has surpassed it’s planned one-year scientific mission. The RAX-2 team will be posting updates on the status as they investigate over the next few weeks.
Matt Bennett KF6RTB reports that the amateur radio CubeSat, Radio Auroral Explorer 2 (RAX-2), has detected the communication-disrupting anomaly in the upper atmosphere it was searching for. The team have expressed their thanks to the amateur radio community.
RAX-2 was built by students at the University of Michigan. The primary objective of the mission is to use the onboard radar receiver in conjunction with a powerful radar station in Alaska to study the formation of a plasma anomaly known for causing the scintillation of radio signals in the UHF and higher bands. This scintillation effect is known to inhibit our space radar tracking capabilities and ground-space communications. Studying this anomaly in this bi-static radar configuration (ground based transmitter, space-base receiver) will provide scientists with a better understanding of these anomalies that has not been achievable with ground radars alone.
Late on Friday, March 9, Matt KF6RTB announced the news:
This is unbelievable!! After more than three years of hard work and dedication by my team and professor at Michigan, our chief scientist confirmed today that the RAX-2 spacecraft we designed, built, and launched into space has detected the communication-disrupting anomaly in the upper atmosphere that we’ve been looking for!! Cheers guys, we did it!!! GO guys, we did it!!! GO BLUE!!!! [Michigan Athletics battle cry]
The RAX Team would like to acknowledge and say thank you to the amateur radio satellite community for all of their support on this mission. We’ve really enjoyed interacting with fellow operators while collecting and analyzing telemetry. We’ve also learned a great deal about satellite operations from each other.
The Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) initiative took place on Friday, October 28 at 0948 UT and a number of Amateur Radio satellites were among them. The CubeSats were successfully deployed at 1129 UT. Signals have been heard from Explorer-1[Prime], RAX-2, AubieSat-1 and M-Cubed.
Jean-Marie KI4YAU asks Amateur Radio operators to listen out for AubieSat-1, on 437.475 MHz CW. He says
We fervently request your assistance in receiving transmissions from an upcoming satellite, AubieSat-1, immediately after its launch from Vandenberg AFB, California, USA. AubieSat-1 (AS-1) is an undergraduate – built CubeSat satellite developed by Auburn University.
AS-1 is designed to transmit with a power of about 800 milliwatts on a frequency of 437.475 MHz, plus or minus Doppler correction [+/- 9 kHz]. The beacon signal, along with telemetry, will be sent using A1A continuous wave Morse code at 20 words per minute. Additional telemetry from the onboard science experiment will use CW transmissions up to 60 WPM.
