Tag Archives: satellite

Jan 14 2013

Alba Orbital make Shell top 10

CubeSat_ModelGlasgow based Alba Orbital, who aim to use CubeSats for Space Burials, have got through to the national round of a major start-up competition.

They now need your help to go one better and win £1000 for their Space Start-up.

There is a 1 minute elevator pitch video on the Shell Livewire site describes their plans for the company.

You can vote for Alba Orbital at http://www.shell-livewire.org/awards/grand-ideas-awards

Alba Orbital believe Space is important and more start-up satellite companies should be succeeding!

Thanks for your support,

Tom Walkinshaw
Founder, Alba Orbital

Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Awards http://www.shell-livewire.org/awards/grand-ideas-awards

BBC Radio Scotland interview with Tom Walkinshaw of Alba Orbital
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft6i_7FSdko

Alba Orbital use the MAKlab Studio in Glasgow, for manufacturing their prototype satellites http://www.maklab.co.uk/

Alba Orbital http://www.albaorbital.com/

Jan 8 2013

UKube-1 CubeSat Featured in SatMagazine

SatMagazine January 2013The January issue of the free publication SatMagazine features an article on the UK Space Agency’s first satellite UKube-1. It will carry an amateur radio subsystem and a launch on a Soyuz rocket is planned for the 3rd quarter of 2013.

The article on page 6 includes a picture of Steve Greenland of Clyde Space taking delivery of a set of AMSAT-UK FUNcube boards which will provide a 435/145 MHz linear transponder and a 145.915 MHz BPSK telemetry beacon for educational outreach.

Starting on page 24 is an article ‘Truly Educational Experiences… With Nanosats’ covering the University Nanosat program.

Download the January 2013 SatMagazine from http://www.satmagazine.com/2013/SM_Jan2013.pdf

Ukube-1 – Milton Keynes Cubesat Community Workshop January 22 http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=11782

Clyde Space http://www.clyde-space.com/

Jan 7 2013

More Optical Beacon Tests From FITSAT-1

(C) Tsuyoshi Watanabe Ebina City, Kanagawa Japan 1:24:23-1:24:25JST, 12 Dec 2012
Takahashi e160, Diameter short focus telescope 16cm (F=530mm, F3.3)
Nikon D800E, ISO12800, 2 seconds exposure

Further transmissions from the optical LED beacon on the amateur radio CubeSat FITSAT-1 are planned for January 10-15. Weather permitting the satellite beacon should be visible using binoculars.

2013, Flashing LED Schedule (times GMT):
10th Jan. 23:57:30 – 23:59:30  New Delhi India        (10Hz Green 2min)
11th Jan. 13:52:30 – 13:54:30  San Francisco USA  (10Hz Green 2min)
12th Jan. 22:00:30 – 22:02:30  Bangalore India        (10Hz Green 2min)
13th Jan. 14:41:30 – 14:43:30  Melbourne Australia (10Hz Red     2min)
14th Jan. 11:03:30 – 11:05:30  Oklahoma USA         (10Hz Green 2min)
15th Jan. 22:27:30 – 22:29:30  Wulumuqi China       (10Hz Green 2min)

The FITSAT-1 CubeSat was developed by students at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology (FIT) in Japan. As well as the optical LED experiment the satellite carries several amateur radio payloads: a CW beacon on 437.250 MHz, a telemetry beacon on 437.445 MHz and a high-speed data downlink on 5840.0 MHz.

Information on how to see the optical beacon signal can be found on the Visual SAT-Flare Tracker 3D site at
http://www.satflare.com/track.php?q=fitsat#MAP

FITSAT-1 website http://www.fit.ac.jp/~tanaka/fitsat.shtml

FITSAT-1 Optical Beacon video
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/december2012/fitsat1_optical_beacon_video.htm

Further information and pictures of FITSAT-1 and the other CubeSats deployed from the ISS on October 4, 2012 is at http://www.uk.amsat.org/?page_id=10967

Jan 1 2013

Nanosat Launch Concept

Did you ever wonder how Nanosatellites are being launched ?
Well, Meidad Pariente has edited a video produced by the Aalto-1 team that explains how such a task is performed.

Both the edited and original videos are shown.

Aalto-1 is a student CubeSat project of Aalto University, Finland that plans to operate at VHF-UHF and there will also be an S-band transmitter. Up to 8 watts of power will be available from the Solar panels.

Continue reading →

Dec 30 2012

N0D Dooms Day Press Release

N0D, the Special Event Station for the End of the World, succeeded in making 142 contacts via the amateur radio satellites.

Houston, Texas December 27, 2012: The N0D team had a very successful operation celebrating the Mayan Calendar End of the World which some expected would occur on Dec 21, 2012. In celebration, experienced satellite operators Allen Mattis, N5AFV, and Andy MacAllister, W5ACM, operated special event station N0D on the available satellite passes from December 15th, 2012, through December 22nd, 2012.

Continue reading →

Dec 27 2012

A Multi-purpose Portable Satellite Station

At the AMSAT-UK Colloquium 2011, Ivo Klinkert PA1IVO gave a short presentation about his experiences with his portable setup, called A Multipurpose Portable Setup.

Based on this presentation, Andreas Bilsing DL2LUX invited him to write an article about this subject for the AMSAT-DL Journal. The article, Eine tragbare Mehrzweck-Satellitenstation, was translated from English to German by Andreas and appeared in the March 2012 issue of the AMSAT-DL Journal. The English version of the article appeared later in two issues of OSCAR News of AMSAT-UK (July and September 2012). These AMSAT-UK publications are available to E-members here.

The original English text can now be read on the link below (not all pictures appeared in the article in OSCAR News). Please be informed that the status of the satellites mentioned in the article is not updated since the article was written! If you are interested in working satellites as a portable station, Google can give you more webpages about this subject, for example a similar setup of KB5WIA.

Read Ivo’s article at http://ivok.home.xs4all.nl/pa1ivo/portable_satellite_setup.html