MOJAVE-10.28.2012—On a calm clear high-desert October evening, Interorbital Systems’ NEPTUNE rocket series’ main engine roared to life in its first hot-firing test. The engine, the IOS GPRE 7.5KNTA (General Purpose Rocket Engine; 7,500lb-thrust; Nitric Acid; Turpentine; Ablative cooling), blasted a 22-foot (6.71-meter) plume of fire across Interorbital’s Mojave Spaceport test area, scorching the sand an additional 50 feet (15.24 meters) beyond the plume end.
Tag Archives: Space
Appointment of Frank Bauer, KA3HDO as AMSAT VP-Human Spaceflight Programs
AMSAT-NA President Barry Baines is pleased to announce that effective August 1, 2012, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, will be returning as AMSAT’s Vice President for Human Spaceflight Programs. This role will include AMSAT’s leadership on the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Program and amateur radio operations pursuits on other Human Spaceflight vehicles proposed by NASA, International Space Agencies and domestic and international commercial spaceflight organizations.
Bauer made the following comment regarding his reappointment: “I look forward to working again with AMSAT as we bring the excitement of human space exploration pursuits and amateur radio communications into the communities of the world, inspiring youth to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers”. Continue reading
Radio Amateurs aim to fly new FPGA in space
Radio amateurs James Cutler KF6RFX, Andrew Mitchell KD8RCO and K. Scott Tripp KD8IPK are involved in developing the Michigan Multipurpose Minisatellite (MCubed-2) at the University of Michigan.
The mission objectives for the MCubed-2 are to capture mid-resolution images of the Earth from Low Earth Orbit, perform a technology demonstration for a novel new Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), and train the next generation of Aerospace Engineers.
Testing the FPGA on a CubeSat platform will provide valuable information as to how it survives Low Earth Orbit and how well it operates when processing real image data.
M-Cubed implements a 3 mega-pixel CMOS camera that will transfer the image to the FPGA upon request. MCubed-2 is also an educational project for Engineering students at the University of Michigan. M-Cubed provides hands-on experience for students who would not otherwise have the opportunity to build flight hardware for a space mission.
The training these students gain by working on this project will better prepare them for work in the Aerospace industry. MCubed-2 is a 1U CubeSat and the group is proposing to use a 1 watt output simplex transceiver on UHF with 9k6 telemetry.
It is planned to launch from Vandenberg into a 770 km by 460 km 123 degree orbit with these spacecraft: Medgar Evers – CUNYSat-1 Cal Poly – IPEX: MSU – Firebird: UH – H-2: Kentucky Space – KySat-2: SLU – Argus: LLNL – Udjat: SMDC – TacSat-6, SNaP-1/2/3, SMDC ONE 2.3/2.4 Aerospace Corp. – AeroCube-5a/5b/6 AFIT – ALICE: GSFC/Siena College – Firefly: USC – MaVEx: USU – STACEM:
More information is available at http://exploration.engin.umich.edu/missions/mcubed/iaru/
The MCubed-2 IARU frequency application is http://exploration.engin.umich.edu/missions/mcubed/iaru/MCubed2_oct2012.doc
FUNcube Dongle Pro+ SDR Presentation in Orlando
FUNcube Dongle Pro+ Presentation at AMSAT Symposium in Orlando – Image Credit Mark Hammond N8MH
Howard Long G6LVB travelled to Orlando, Florida to give a presentation on Friday, October 26 about the AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle PRO+ software defined radio.
The video of a similar presentation Howard gave to the AMSAT-UK Colloquium can be seen via
http://www.uk.amsat.org/?page_id=10953
FUNcube Dongle Pro+ LF/MF/HF/VHF/UHF Software Defined Radio Video http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=10573
FUNcube Yahoo Group:- http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Fcdproplus/
In space no one can hear you scream?
Scream in Space won a competition run by Surrey Satellite Techonology Ltd (SSTL) in 2011 to propose an idea for an app to run on their STRaND-1 smartphone nanosatellite.
With the help of the public, we’re testing the hypothesis that in space no one can hear you scream. It’s a statement that has been well known in popular culture since appearing as the tagline to the 1979 sci-fi film ‘Alien’ – but how many people have really tested this claim? Whilst the conclusion of this experiment may seem clear to many, it is our hope that through this investigation thousands of people worldwide can learn more about several aspects of physics (including orbits, acoustics and much more) and get excited about the field of satellite technology!
In coming up with this idea, we thought about what features the Android phone has which are not usually present on conventional satellites – and naturally the speaker and microphone are two such components. It would seem a shame not to leverage the power of these additions, and so the idea was born…
Read more about the project on the SSTL blog and New Scientist, or listen to the Cambridge University Spaceflight team discussing Scream in Space on the Space Boffins podcast earlier in 2012:
Enter your scream! Here
Vote the best scream here
Hurry only Ten days left to Scream
2012 Cambridge University Spaceflight
KySat-2 Kentucky Space-Blog
Twyman Clements, Space Systems Engineer at Kentucky Space, has agreed to provide regular updates to blog readers on the progress of the next satellite now that the X-ray hunter, “CXBN,” has flown. His first installment can be read below. Enjoy.
‘Wayne’
Here at Kentucky Space we are furiously at work on the consortium’s next satellite. While our engineering work is moving along on KySat-2 (drawing below) we wanted to start “K2 Tuesday’s” to update readers on the progress of the spacecraft, as well as introduce them to basic satellite systems and some of the people who will be working on it. I wanted to start with a little history of Kentucky Space’s orbital satellite program.
Kentucky Space began as a consortium of universities within the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2006. From the beginning students worked on KySat-1, the state’s first orbital satellite. Through the next few years the students and university faculty learned the in’s and out’s of spacecraft design, testing and communication. KySat-1 (pictured on clean room bench, Above) was eventually selected as one of three primary satellites on NASA’s first ELaNa mission which was eventually launched in March of 2010, along with the NASA GLORY spacecraft. KySat-1 was a one-unit (1U) CubeSat that rode to orbit as a secondary payload. Sadly, due to a launch anomaly with the rocket, none of the payloads made orbit. But Kentucky Space and its partner institutions have continued to work, and Morehead State University’s “CXBN” satellite was launched just weeks ago.
KySat-2, or “K2,” will fulfill the original mission of KySat-1, but will incorporate even better components and the added knowledge acquired the past few years by Kentucky Space. K2 will include an attitude determination system, which will also serve as a camera that will take pictures of both the earth and star fields. Additionally the spacecraft will transmit telemetry in the amateur radio spectrum allowing HAM radio operators to capture it and check the health of the spacecraft as it makes its way around the globe every 90 or so minutes.
Currently KySat-2 is serving as a backup secondary payload on two NASA missions slated for launch in Q3 of 2013. This means delivery dates to the launch site in April or May of 2013. The satellites subsystem are currently being designed with prototypes being ordered this week. Within the next six weeks we will be putting together a FlatSat version of KySat-2 to test communication between its subsystems and refining the spacecraft software. We will keep you up to date through the entire process.
I’ll be back next Tuesday with another update. Until then,
Twyman Clements, Space Systems Engineer, Kentucky Space
AMSAT-UK 
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