OSCAR-9 and OSCAR-11 TV News Reports

The original TV news reports about the United Kingdom’s first Amateur Radio satellites, UOSAT-1 (OSCAR-9) and UOSAT-2 (OSCAR-11), can now be seen on the web.

In ‘Talking Satellite’, made February 15, 1983, Martin Sweeting G3YJO talks about OSCAR-9 and its speech synthesizer.
The ITN description reads: “The World’s first talking satellite begins to speak. It was launched 18 months ago in America for the University of Surrey and one of its purposes is to encourage interest among school children in space technology.
Watch it at http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1983/02/15/AS150283008/

In ‘British Satellite’, made February 7, 1984, Martin Sweeting G3YJO talks about OSCAR-11 due to be launched the following month.
The ITN description reads: “Staff at the University of Surrey have designed and built a spacecraft in 5 months after being challenged by NASA.  Intvw Dr Martin Sweeting, University of Surrey.
Watch it at http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1984/02/07/AS070284011/

30th anniversary of UoSAT-1 (OSCAR-9)
http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/10/12/30th-anniversary-of-uosat-1-oscar-9/

UoSAT-2 (OSCAR-11) Report September 1, 2011
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/september2011/oscar11_report.htm

OSCAR News is published quarterly by AMSAT-UK and posted to members.
To get your copy join AMSAT-UK online at http://tinyurl.com/JoinAMSAT-UK/
Free sample issue at http://www.uk.amsat.org/on_193_final.pdf

AubieSat-1 Video

Auburn University’s famous battle cry, “War Eagle”, will be heard from space Oct. 27 when it is transmitted to Earth from a student-built amateur radio satellite known as AubieSat-1.

After launch when the satellite comes over Auburn, Alabama, the team will send up a command and if all is well AubieSat-1 will reply with “War Eagle” in Morse code.

AubieSat-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.

The AubieSat team from Auburn University have released a video about the project which features radio amateurs such as J-M Wersinger KI4YAU and Kyle Owen KK4ANG.

Watch the AubieSat-1 Project Video

Auburn University – AubieSat-1 http://ocm.auburn.edu/featured_story/aubiesat.html

Wiki – Auburn University War Eagle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Eagle

CW SRM Nanosat decoding software

The CubeSat Project Team in the University of Khartoum have made available software to decode the telemetry beacon of the new Amateur Radio satellite built by the SRM University.

The Telemetry Decoding Software was developed by University students for studying the University of Khartoum CubeSat (KN-SAT1) telemetry data. It has now been modified to handle SRMVU data

Download the software at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7PWS7GEA

SRMSAT http://srmsat.in/

Good signals received from SRMSAT and JUGNU
http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/10/12/good-signals-received-from-srmsat-and-jugnu/

Radio Amateurs thanked for Jugnu reports

The Jugnu team say the continuous stream of satellite beacon reports from Radio Amateurs across the world surpassed all their expectations. The team welcome further reports.

On the AMSAT bulletin board Chintalagiri Shashank writes:

I’m the system engineer for the Jugnu nanosatellite project. This is the nanosatellite which is more generally known on this list as JNU, since that was the identifier sent along with the TLE. I’ve been lurking on this list for the past couple of years, ever since we started working on the nanosatellite. I did learn a lot from occasionally perusing through the posts here. Not being a licensed HAM myself, I apologize for intruding into your space here today.

On behalf of the entire Jugnu team, I’d like to thank all of you for the beacon reports you’ve sent our way, both on the list as well as through Mani (VU2WMY). Its been a long couple of years on the project, but the last few days have been a much more intense roller coaster ride. The continuous stream of beacon reports from across the world surpassed all of our expectations, and were the mainstay of our emotional support while we were having difficulties recieving the beacon ourselves. If I do get to meet any of you in person, the beer’s on me.

The telemetry gathered by HAMs across the world has been extremely useful in our analysis of the spacecraft’s condition. I hope to be able to release, at least partially, the details of the format for the beacon string in a couple of days. In the meanwhile, we welcome any additional telemetry that you can send our way. Even information about the AOS/LOS has been very useful in trying to figure out where exactly the satellite is.

NORAD / celestrak has released 5 TLE’s tagged with the PSLV C-18 launch (2011-058<A-E>). We arent yet sure which one, if any, is Jugnu. We do know that SRMSat is one of the cluster of 3 objects (B,C,D). We’ve been able to recieve our beacon when we attempt to track C, but the signal strength is low and we generally see it clearly only near AOS. Due to reasons I’m probably not allowed to discuss in public, we have reason to believe that Jugnu is moving away from the other objects (SRMSat, VesselSat, and until later today, MT) at a velocity of approximately 1.5 to 3 meters per second since separation from LV. We expect this velocity to be tangential to the orbit. If you’re trying to track Jugnu, I would suggest that for the moment, C is a good starting point, and it may be better to track a little ahead of
it. We will be trying to do the same in some of the later passes ourselves.

In the case of SRMSat, we’ve had good signals at object B until earlier today, but we think that C did a better job of it in the last decent pass we had earlier this evening, about 6 hours ago.

I’d be more than delighted to try and answer any questions you may have about Jugnu, so please feel free to contact me on or off list if you would like to know more about it.

Thanks and Regards,

Chintalagiri Shashank

Head, System Integration and Electronic Hardware Design,
Jugnu Nanosatellite Project
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Blog: http://blog.chintal.in/
Email: shashank.chintalagiri at gmail.com

JUGNU 437.275 MHz reports should be sent to
wmy@isac.gov.in
shantag@iitk.ac.in
Web: http://www.iitk.ac.in/me/jugnu/index.htm

SRMSAT 437.425 MHz reports should be sent to KC2YQJ <at> arrl.net
Web: http://srmsat.in/srmvu.html

Note due to the 20 degree inclination orbit these satellites are not receivable in high latitude countries such as the United Kingdom.

Getting started on Amateur Radio Satellites PDF
http://www.uk.amsat.org/2011/05/09/getting-started-on-amateur-radio-satellites/

Good signals received from SRMSAT and JUGNU

JUNGU on an AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle SDR

JUNGU received by N8MH on an AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle SDR

Radio Amateurs have been reporting good signals on 437.425 MHz and 437.275 MHz from the new Amateur Radio satellites SRMSAT and JUGNU.

Unfortunately due to the 20 degree inclination of the orbit hams in the United Kingdom are unable to hear them.

Mark Hammond N8MH reports on the FUNcube Yahoo group that he has been using his AMSAT-UK FUNcube dongle Software Defined Radio to receive signals from JUGNU.

Watch the lift off of SRMSAt and JUGNU on the PSLV-C18 launcher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRGTCJmJnLY

Information on how to decode the telemetry from SRMSAT can be found at
http://srmsat.in/srmvu.html

JUGNU 437.275 MHz reports should be sent to
wmy@isac.gov.in
shantag@iitk.ac.in

SRMSAT 437.425 MHz reports should be sent to KC2YQJ <at> arrl.net

The Hindu launch report http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2530847.ece

JUGNU in The Economic Times
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/IIT-students-satellite-Jugnu-to-be-launched-into-space/articleshow/10325537.cms

AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/maillist/

Join the FUNcube Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FUNcube/

30th Anniversary of UoSAT-1 (OSCAR-9)

UOSAT-1 OSCAR 9 Team

UoSAT-OSCAR 9

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) celebrated the 30th anniversary of the launch of Surrey’s first satellite, UoSAT-1. Launched into orbit on October 6, 1981, UoSAT-1 was designed and built by a team from the University of Surrey led by SSTL founder Sir Martin Sweeting, G3YJO.

UoSAT-1 was also known as UoSAT-OSCAR 9. It was a scientific and educational low-Earth orbit satellite containing many experiments and beacons but no amateur transponders. UO-9 was fully operational until it re-entered October 13, 1989 from a decaying orbit after nine years of service.

UO-9’s mission scored several firsts for technology which would be incorporated into future amateur satellite missions including:

+ The first on-board computer (IHU – Integrated Housekeeping Unit)
+ Battery and attitude management
+ Remote control, and experiments
+ First S-band beacon
+ It carried a CCD camera, a Digitalker speech synthesizer, and transmitted telemetry data on a 145.826 MHz beacon at 1200 baud using asynchronous AFSK.

UoSAT-1 team at Vandenberg Air Force Base

UoSAT-1 team at Vandenberg Air Force Base

Amateur Satellite Operators are also familiar with later SSTL UoSAT developments:

+ UoSAT-2 was designated as UO-11 which can still be heard operating on 145.825 MHz with a beacon transmitting 1200 baud using asynchronous AFSK.

+ UoSAT-3 was designated as UO-14 (no longer operational) and featured an FM Voice Repeater with 145.9750 MHz uplink and 435.0700 MHz downlink.

More history can be found in an interesting article posted on the SpaceDaily.com website: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/SSTL_celebrates_30th_anniversary_of_groundbreaking_satellite_UoSAT_1_999.html

Read the SSTL Press Release http://www.sstl.co.uk/news-and-events?story=1899

The UoSAT-1 Technical Handbook lists these contributors to the project:
Telecommand System and Flight Configuration – Dr. Martin Sweeting G3YJO, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Power Systems – Jerzy Slowikowski, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Telemetry – Dr. Lui Mansi, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Data Beacons – Bob Haining, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Antenna Systems – Tony Brown, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Navigation Magnetometer – Christine Sweeting G6APF, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Spacecraft Microcomputers – Chris Haynes, UOS/AMSAT-UK
HF Beacons – Colin Smithers G4CWH, UOS/AMSAT-UK
CCD Camera Imaging – Dr Paul Taylor, UOS/AMSAT-UK

UoSAT-1 – OSCAR-9 story in Daily Mail Newspaper Archive
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/06/28/uosat-in-daily-mail-archive/

Thanks to ANS and SSTL for the above information