Tag Archives: Space

Jun 21 2012

Video of Space Shuttle Discovery STS-56 mission

Ellen Ochoa KB5TZZ the first Hispanic woman in space

The crew of STS-56 made numerous amateur radio contacts to schools around the world using the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment II (SAREX II), including brief radio contact with the Russian Mir space station, the first such contact between Shuttle and Mir using amateur radio equipment.

STS-56 Mission Specialist Ellen Ochoa KB5TZZ plays the flute in space shuttle Discovery’s aft flight deck in April 1993. Credit: NASA

STS-56 was a Space Shuttle Discovery mission to perform special experiments. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on April 8, 1993.

There were four radio hams on STS-56, Kenneth D. Cameron KB5AWP, Mike Foale KB5UAC, Ellen Ochoa KB5TZZ, Kenneth Cockrell KB5UAH.

Ellen Ochoa KB5TZZ was the first Hispanic woman to go into space. She went on to complete four space shuttle flights and become Deputy Director of the Johnson Space Center.

The primary payload of the flight was the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-2 (ATLAS-2), designed to collect data on the relationship between the sun’s energy output and Earth’s middle atmosphere and how these factors affect the ozone layer. It included six instruments mounted on a Spacelab pallet in the cargo bay, with the seventh mounted on the wall of the bay in two Get Away Special canisters.

Narrated by the Commander and crew, this video contains footage selected by the astronauts, as well as their comments on the mission. Footage includes launch, onboard crew activities, and landing.

The amateur radio aspect of the mission features at 09:58 into the video.

Watch Space Shuttle STS-56 Discovery ATLAS-2 pt1-2 Post Flight Press 1993 NASA

Watch Space Shuttle STS-56 Discovery ATLAS-2 pt2-2 Post Flight Press 1993 NASA

Jun 21 2012

Students Build Supercapacitor Battery for next ARISSat

Penn State Behrend students Jacob Sherk, Kathleen Nicholas and David Jesberger put final touches to the amateur radio satellite supercapacitor battery – Image Credit Pennsylvania State University

On Feb. 3, 2006, astronauts tossed an old spacesuit off the International Space Station. Inside was an amateur radio transmitter, a temperature sensor and some batteries.

The suit was a DIY satellite. It circled the Earth twice, repeating a greeting recorded in multiple languages; ham radio operators listened in as it passed overhead.

Then the batteries died.

The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, or AMSAT, tried again in 2011. The battery in that satellite, a more traditional box design, also failed.

Penn State Nittany Lions Paw Print

For the next model, AMSAT, a volunteer group, turned to the School of Engineering at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. Three students designed a brand-new battery: a 1.8 kg cube powered by 15 supercapacitors, each roughly the size of a film canister.

The battery was built to handle 16 charge cycles in a 24-hour period. That will power the satellite in dark orbits, when the solar panels are not facing the sun.

To activate the battery before those solar panels charge, the students – David Jesberger, of St. Marys; Kathleen Nicholas, of Pittsburgh; and Jacob Sherk, of Elizabethtown – added four 9-volt Duracells.

AMSAT hopes to fit the satellite into a rocket payload and onto the International Space Station sometime in 2013. The astronauts won’t have to do much with it.

“It’s simple by design. They flip a switch, and they throw it out,” said Dakshina Murthy Bellur, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Penn State Behrend. He supervised the battery work, which counted as the students’ senior capstone project.

All three students have since graduated. All three have jobs: Nicholas and Jesberger signed on with defense contractors, and Sherk works at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

They continue to track the AMSAT project. They want to know when their battery, upon which they laser-etched with their names and a Nittany Lion paw print, gets a launch date.

“That’s going to be cool,” Jesberger said. “We’ll have our signatures in space.”

Source Pennsylvania State University http://live.psu.edu/story/60125

ARISSat http://www.arissat.org/

Jun 21 2012

Encouraging Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

First US Woman Astronuat Sally Ride on STS-7 - Image Credit NASA

The Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars  (WISH) project is sponsoring two six-day summer camps for rising high school seniors that should feature a presentation by astronaut Shannon Walker KD5DXB and an Amateur Radio contact with the International Space Station (ISS).

Eighty-four female high school students from 29 states will plan a simulated mission to Mars and experience life as an engineer or scientist when NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston hosts two events focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in June and July.

Shannon Walker KD5DXB - Image Credit NASA

The young women will work in teams with female NASA mentors to develop mission plans for launching to Mars, living and working there, and integrating the many components necessary for a successful planetary mission. They will work within the confines of a fictitious budget and build several small mockups of vehicles to demonstrate a successful launch and landing of the Mars spacecraft.

“WISH gives some of our brightest future innovators a chance to experience some of the exciting challenges that NASA engineers and scientists face on a daily basis,” said Johnson Deputy Director and four-time space shuttle astronaut Ellen Ochoa KB5TZZ. “It shows the young women that there are a variety of opportunities for them in technical fields.”

Young women participating June 24-29 will hear a first-hand account of life in space from NASA astronaut and radio amateur Shannon Walker KD5DXB. Participants July 8-13 will have a chance to speak with a current space station astronaut via ham radio as part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program, a NASA educational initiative that facilitates direct links between students and astronauts.

The young women were selected based on completion of interactive, online lessons focused on space exploration and mapped to national education standards, academic merits and geographic diversity. The WISH program encourages young women to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees and exposes them to the real-world applications of STEM careers at NASA. This program is in its second year. It began as a NASA accompaniment to the White House Council on Women and Girls.

For more information about WISH and a list of student participants, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/teachingfromspace/students/wish.html

WISH: Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars http://www.wish.aerospacescholars.org/

Source NASA http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/jun/HQ_12-209_WISH.html

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station ARISS http://ariss.rac.ca/

Jun 20 2012

ArduSat Arduino CubeSat Technical Details

ArduSat is an open-source arduino-based nanosatellite. It will have an extensive sensor-suite onboard and will allow users to upload their own code and run their own experiments.

ArduSat will use a GomSpace NanoCom U482C which is a half-duplex UHF transceiver, capable of 3W, operating in the 435-438 MHz amateur radio satellite band. It implements Forward Error Correction (FEC) and Viterbi coding based on the CCSDS standards in order to improve reliability and throughput of the space link.

The project is raising donations through the Kickstarter site at http://nanosatisfi.com/

Watch Technical Details

Here are the links to the parts mentioned in the video:

Flight Control Computer: NanoMind 712C http://gomspace.com/index.php?p=products-a712c

Electrical Power Supply (EPS): NanoPower P31u http://gomspace.com/index.php?p=products-p31u

Solar Panels: NanoPower P100U-A http://gomspace.com/index.php?p=products-p100ua

Transceiver: NanoCom U482C http://gomspace.com/index.php?p=products-u482c

Structure: ISIS 1U CubeSat Structure http://www.cubesatshop.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=66

ISIS CubeSat Structure Brochure http://www.isispace.nl/brochures/ISIS_CubeSat%20Structures_Brochure_v.7.11.pdf

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/NanoSatisfi/307866409295499

ArduSat Open Source CubeSat Next Phase in DIY Space Access http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=8337

ArduSat Arduino CubeSat Update http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=8284

NanoSatisfi was founded by Austrian-born Peter Platzer a former high-energy physicist (CERN), former Hedge Fund Quantitative Trader, avid HP-41 hacker and Arduino enthusiast, along with Belgian aerospace engineer Jeroen Cappaert KK6BLQ intern at NASA Ames Research Center, Canadian aerospace engineer Joel Spark KK6ANB intern at EADS Astrium and Hungarian Reka Kovacs intern at NASA Ames Research Center working on alternative methods of public outreach for space science. The four founders met at the International Space University in Strasbourg and thought that they could do something to provide affordable, open-source space exploration for everyone.

Jun 19 2012

SkyCube Proposes Tweets from Space

Tim DeBenedictis and Anna Vital with the SkyCube satellite

Tim DeBenedictis and Anna Vital with the SkyCube satellite

In this video Tim DeBenedictis founder of San Francisco based Southern Stars describes the SkyCube satellite project to Funders and Founders host Anna Vital, following Southern Stars’ second-place finish at the Life 3.0 forum in San Francisco on May 31, 2012.

SkyCube-SatelliteTim aims to open up space exploration to millions of people across the planet. He hopes to do for space exploration what Southern Stars have done for astronomy with the SkySafari App.

The 1U CubeSat carries a camera that will send pictures back to Earth to be made available to people around the world with the appropriate App.

SkyCube has an unusual feature, a deployable 3m (10ft) reflective balloon, which it is hoped will be visible from Earth. The balloon also serves as a de-orbiting mechanism.

A launch to the ISS for subsequent deployment is planned for November 2013.

Tim says a donation of $1 will sponsor 10 seconds of the mission and what you get for that 10 seconds is the ability to broadcast a message from space, “effectively tweet from space”.

Watch SkyCube Interview

Watch SkyCube at Funders and Founders

Southern Stars http://www.southernstars.com/

Funders and Founders http://meetup.fundersandfounders.com/

Jun 19 2012

SkyCube Proposes “Tweets from Space”

Tim DeBenedictis and Anna Vital with the SkyCube satellite

In this video Tim DeBenedictis founder of San Francisco based Southern Stars describes the SkyCube satellite project to Funders and Founders host Anna Vital, following Southern Stars’ second-place finish at the Life 3.0 forum in San Francisco on May 31, 2012.

Tim aims to open up space exploration to millions of people across the planet. He hopes to do for space exploration what Southern Stars have done for astronomy with the SkySafari App.

The 1U CubeSat carries a camera that will send pictures back to Earth to be made available to people around the world with the appropriate App.

SkyCube has an unusual feature, a deployable 3m (10ft) reflective balloon, which it is hoped will be visible from Earth. The balloon also serves as a de-orbiting mechanism.

A launch is planned on a SpaceX rocket in the 1st quarter of 2013.

Tim says a donation of $1 will sponsor 10 seconds of the mission and what you get for that 10 seconds is the ability to broadcast a message from space, “effectively tweet from space”.

Watch SkyCube Interview

Watch SkyCube at Funders and Founders

Southern Stars http://www.southernstars.com/

Funders and Founders http://meetup.fundersandfounders.com/