Dec 21 2012

UKube-1 Signs up for Launch and Completes Thermal Vacuum Testing

Clyde Space have successfully completed Thermal Vacuum Testing, where the UKube-1 Flight Model was operated in a simulated space environment (i.e. no air and at temperature extremes)

UKube-1 the UK Space Agency’s (UKSA) first satellite has ‘booked’ its journey into space on a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket. The launch from Baikonur in Kazakhstan is expected to take place in the 3rd quarter of 2013. UKube-1 has also completed Thermal Vacuum Testing to verify the spacecraft operation in a simulated space environment.

UKube-1 will carry a set of AMSAT-UK FUNcube boards to provide a 435/145 MHz linear transponder and a 145.915 MHz BPSK telemetry beacon for educational outreach.

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Dec 19 2012

AMSAT Receives $25,000 Matching Funds Challenge

AMSAT-NA President Barry Baines, WD4ASW says that they have received a matching funds challenge! An anonymous donor will match up to $25,000.00 for Fox. Now is the time to take advantage of this opportunity to double your donation.

Barry writes, “We end 2012 with significant progress made on the development of Fox-1. A formal proposal to launch Fox-1B was submitted to the NASA ELaNA (Education Launch of Nanosatellites) program on November 19, 2012. NASA is expected to announce in late January or early February 2013 those projects that have been selected. This is our second ELaNA submission, and we believe the merits of this proposal are even stronger than our original Fox-1 proposal.”

Read the full story and details of how to donate at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/index.php

Dec 17 2012

AMSAT Presentation at Qatar International Amateur Radio Festival

AMSAT-DL President Peter Guelzow DB2OS at the Qatar National Day Station A71QND

AMSAT-DL President Peter Guelzow DB2OS gave a presentation about the AMSAT P3E and P5 missions at the Qatar international amateur radio festival at the Al Rayyan Theatre in Souq Waqif.

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Dec 7 2012

Prison Inmates Build Deployers for CubeSats

NBC News reports that inmates at San Quentin prison are building CubeSat orbital deployers.

P-PODs, Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployers are aluminum boxes designed to hold tiny satellites known as CubeSats, which ride “piggyback” into space as secondary payloads.

NBC quotes Ariel Wainzinger, a man with ten months left on his sentence, as saying: “You come to prison and you think it’s gonna be all gloom and doom and you find yourself with a lot of different opportunities and you take advantage of it.”

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