Tag Archives: Space

Jun 10 2012

SO-67 Recovery Work Continues

SA AMSAT say there is still a recovery opportunity for the amateur radio satellite SumbandilaSat (SO-67).

The team at SunSpace are still incrementally reading back the program code from the nine power modules in an effort to determine the extent of the corruption. With SumbandilaSat going through eclipses, the satellite is not as much available as the team would like. SumbandilaSat’s batteries failed which means that the satellite is only active when the solar panels are illuminated.

“We need the information to confirm that the changes we made to stop repeated corruption were effective.” Johann Lochner ZR6CBC who spends a considerable amount of his free time on recovery of SumbandilaSat said. “It is our aim to ultimately reprogram one of the power modules to automatically switch the amateur radio transponder on and off.”

Because of the shorter illumination of the solar panels in the Southern hemisphere and most likely poor orientation of the satellite with respect to the sun, progress is much slower than originally anticipated. “Where we had three passes to work with in January we currently have one”, Johann said.

In early June 2011 for an unknown reason (but probably related to a major radiation event on 7 June) the primary controller on the power distribution unit (PDU) powering the On-Board Computer (OBC) stopped responding to commands from the ground station.

It later appeared that the battery had failed and nothing was heard  from the satellite for some time. The ground stations at SANSA Space operations at Hartbeeshoek and the Electronic Systems Laboratory at Stellenbosch University are receiving telemetry when the satellite’s solar panels are illuminated by the sun.

Johann said with SumbandilaSat responding when it is in full sunlight the team is confident that some operations will be restored even to the point where it may be possible to do some imaging and have the amateur radio transponder back in operation.

Source AMSAT News Service ANS

Southern African Amateur Radio Satellite Association SA AMSAT http://www.amsatsa.org.za/

Jun 8 2012

ARISS and Ham Radio Opportunities Video

Dayton 2012 presentation by Mark Hammond N8MH describing the different roles and opportunities for Technical Mentors and Ground Station operators to play in an ARISS contact with the International Space Station.

Watch ARISS and Ham Radio Opportunities by N8MH Dayton 2012.mp4

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

Jun 8 2012

FITSAT-1 to Write Morse Code Across The Night Sky

FITSAT-1 plans to use LED’s to signal in Morse code

The Amateur Radio CubeSat FITSAT-1 will carry an Optical Communications experiment that aims to write Morse Code across the night sky.

Kibo Robot Arm CubeSat Deployment

Kibo Robot Arm CubeSat Deployment

This innovative satellite also plans to transmit 115.2 kbps digital data in the Amateur Satellite Service 5.8 GHz band using a transmitter capable of 2 watts output.

FITSAT-1 (aka NIWAKA) is a 1U CubeSat (10*10*10cm) developed by students at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology (FIT).

In July 2012 it should be carried to the International Space Station (ISS) in the HTV-3 cargo vessel.  FITSAT-1 will then be deployed from the ISS around September by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide KE5DNI using the Kibo robot arm.

The main mission will be to demonstrate high speed data transfer from a satellite, it can transmit a VGA-size (640×480 pixel) JPEG photograph in only 5 to 6 seconds.

Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG and FITSAT

Takushi Tanaka JA6AVG and FITSAT

The second mission is to determine if a satellite can be made to appear as an “artificial star” using high-output LEDs in flash mode. The light from this flash will be received by the ground station, which has a telescope with photo-multiplier linked to a 5.8GHz parabola antenna. This is a basic experiment to investigate the possibility of optical communication with satellites.

A UHF AX25 1k2baud transceiver will be carried for telemetry and telecommand purposes and a UHF CW beacon will also be provided. It will be deployed along with the satellites RAIKO and WE-WISH, F-1 and TechEdSat into a 350x350km 51.6deg inclination orbit.

The following downlink frequencies have been coordinated by the IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel: CW 437.250 MHz, FM 437.445 MHz, High speed data 5840.00 MHz.

FITSAT-1 information, pictures and deployment movie http://www.fit.ac.jp/~tanaka/fitsat.shtml

Kibo Robot Arm http://kibo.jaxa.jp/en/about/kibo/rms/

IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel pages hosted by AMSAT-UK http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/

Jun 8 2012

PrintSat – An Amateur Radio 3D Printer CubeSat

The image shows the building of a CubeSat with Additive Manufacturing with the WINDFORM XT. Image Credit Windform

Students at Montana Sate University (MSU) are planning to build their new amateur radio satellite PrintSat with nano-carbon-impregnated plastic using a 3D printer.

David Klumpar KD7MFJ of MSU said 3D printing “will further lower the costs and speed the development of very small satellites, enabling future scientific missions comprised of dozens of satellites flying in formation.”

Jim White WD0E, president of Colorado Satellite Services, explained that “Additive manufacturing (also called 3-D printing) has evolved in the past few years to be a very inexpensive and fast way to make mechanical parts. With PrintSat, the entire structure of the small satellite will be printed. As the first use of additive manufacturing for a satellite, we plan to show it’s not only cheaper and faster, but that we can make parts that cannot be made in traditional ways.”

When in orbit PrintSat will measure and report on the characteristics of the Windform XT2.0 printed material and plating during its mission life in order to verify the utility of additive manufacturing for spacecraft structures and mechanisms.

PrintSat plans to use the same frequencies as RAMPART and use GMSK 9k6 Ax.25 packet radio. It is aiming for a May 2103 launch from the Wallops Flight Facility into a 500km 40 degree inclination orbit.

Other satellites planning to fly on the same launch include Blacknight-1, Spa-1 Trailblazer, Phonesat, Kysat- II, Rampart, NPS-SCAT, Copper, TJSat, Tethersat, Lunar orbiter/lander CubeSat, Swampsat, Cape-2, Dragonsat-1 and Ethersat.

Montana State University Space Science and Engineering Laboratory https://ssel.montana.edu/

Windform XT2.0 http://www.windform.it/windform-xt-2-0-en.html

IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Status Pages http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru

Jun 7 2012

Raspberry Pi used for Amateur Radio Satellite Software

Dave Johnson, G4DPZ, AMSAT-UK/AMSAT-NA, running GPredict on his Raspberry Pi

AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NA member Dave Johnson, G4DPZ, has been using the Raspberry Pi to run amateur radio satellite software.

The £22 ($35) Model B Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized ARM-based computer board that plugs into a TV and a keyboard. Based around the 700 MHz ARM11 processor the board has 256 MB SDRAM, two USB ports, Ethernet with composite and HDMI video outputs. Low-level peripherals are GPIO pins, SPI, I²C, I²S and UART.

It was developed in Cambridgeshire by a UK registered charity, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which exists to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing.

Dave’s Raspberry Pi runs Debian Squeeze with Xwindows and is accessed using VNC over his shack network.

The first amateur radio application he got running was the GPredict satellite tracking software, thanks go to Alex Csete OZ9AEC for making such a portable implementation. Dave found the sofware and updates of the Keplerian Two Line Elements from the Internet worked perfectly.

GPredict free real-time satellite tracking and orbit prediction http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/

Raspberry Pi http://www.raspberrypi.org/

You can buy the Raspberry Pi through Premier Farnell/Element 14 http://www.farnell.com/ and RS Components http://rswww.com/  Both distributors sell all over the world.

Raspberry Pi – the road to compliance
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/electronics-legislation/2012/05/raspberry-pi—the-road-to-com.html

BBC video: 7-10 year olds get to grips with the Raspberry Pi http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18301670

Raspberry Pi emulator for Windows http://sourceforge.net/projects/rpiqemuwindows/

Jun 7 2012

UK Space Environments Conference