50 Years of the UK in Space

Anu Ojha Director, National Space Academy

The UK Space Agency has released a YouTube video celebrating the UK’s 50 years in space

Watch 50 Years of the UK in Space

First UK Astronaut Helen Sharman GB1MIR on the MIR Space Station

Italian Microsat to Deploy Amateur Radio Satellites

UniSat-5 with labelsThe Italian microsat UniSat-5 will itself deploy a number of additional amateur radio satellites. Among them should be the CubeSats PUCP-SAT-1, HumSat-D, Icube-1, Dove-4 (Planet Labs Inc. non-amateur) and PocketQubes Wren, Eagle-1 (BeakerSat), Eagle-2 ($50Sat), QB-Scout1. PUCP-SAT-1 intends to subsequently release a further satellite Pocket-PUCP.

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TEDxKhartoum Presentation on KN-SAT1 CubeSat

KN-SAT1 Students at ST2UOK Khartoum

KN-SAT1 Students at ST2UOK Khartoum

Abubakr S. Eltayeb ST2AB is an Electrical Engineer specializing in communications systems. He is currently a member of the Cube Satellite Project which belongs to the Faculty of Engineering at University of Khartoum.

The team includes his colleagues Hala M. Othman, Mustafa Atta Mohamed and Yasir M. Osman ST2YM, and together they constructed the first satellite in Sudan with the help of Dr. Tahani Abdalla, their project manager and Dr. Nader Abdelhameed, the team manager. They designed, tested and experimentally launched a fully functional Cube Satellite prototype named KN-SAT1.

The team is now developing the Flight Model of the KN-SAT1, in preparation for its launch into outer space.

This TEDxKhartoum presentation is not in English, however, the segment from 09:12 until 13:25 contains video showing the development of the KN-SAT1 CubeSat including a test of the deployment of the antennas.

Watch TEDxKhartoum 2012: Abubakr S. Eltayeb, A Sudanese Satellite

Khartoum Amateur Radio Satellite Ground Station http://www.uk.amsat.org/4316

KN-Sat1 http://cubesat.uofk.edu/

Sudanese Amateur Radio and SWL History http://www.st2nh.com/sudanamateurradioandswlhistory

Vintage Spacelab 2 video featuring Amateur Radio

W0ORE STS-51-F QSL Card - Image Credit John Magliacane KD2BD

The second ham radio transmissions by an amateur radio operator in space were made by Tony England W0ORE during the Challenger shuttle mission STS 51-F in 1985.

He achieved the first ever two-way Slow Scan TV (SSTV) space contact during the flight when he contacted GB3RS the headquaters station of the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB).

Tony W0ORE was running a Motorola model MX-340 handheld 2-meter transceiver and a Robot Research model 1200C slow-scan television scan converter with an antenna fitted on the inside of one of Challengers windows.

Narrated by the Commander and crew, these videos contains footage selected by the astronauts, as well as their comments on the mission. Footage includes launch, onboard crew activities, and landing. The Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) is mentioned 11:40 into the video.

Space Shuttle STS-51-F Challenger Spacelab 2 Post Flight Press Conference Film 1985 Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

The ITN TV news report ‘Space Radio Hams’ on the two-way SSTV contact between GB3RS at RSGB HQ and Tony England W0ORE (believed to have been on 145.550 MHz) can be seen at
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1985/08/04/AS040885006/

Videos taken by a local TV station, of a contact between a school in Staten Island, NY and Tony England W0ORE on STS-51F can be seen at http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2009/historic_shuttle_videos.htm

John Magliacane KD2BD was one of the amateurs who had a contact with Tony England, see his website at http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/kd2bd.html

STS-51-F (also known as Spacelab 2) was the nineteenth flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, and the eighth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 29 July 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, just under eight days later on 6 August 1985, at 12:45:26 pm PDT.

Shuttle Mission STS-51-F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-F

Vintage Videos of STS-9 Columbia Mission and Spacelab http://www.uk.amsat.org/7265

UKube-1 is Taking Shape

UKube-1, the programme to launch the UK Space Agency’s first Cubesat mission, has reached an important milestone. Two payloads have now undergone pre-integration testing at Clyde Space’s facilities in Glasgow.

UKube-1. Credit: Clyde Space.

UKube-1. Credit: Clyde Space.

Miniature satellite UKube-1, is a collaboration between the UK Space Agency, industry and academia. Open University payload C3D and University of Bath payload TOPCAT were the first of the four payloads selected to be tested. These workshops provided the first opportunity to carry out physical and functional testing between the protoflight payloadsand platform subsystems.C3D imager. Credit: Clyde Space/Open University. (JPG, 2.7 Mb) 

The tests confirmed physical, electrical and operational interfaces between the subsystems. The tests represent the successful handover to flight integration and delivery from the interface emulator (supplied to payload teams by Clyde Space at the start of the program to facilitate rapid parallel development of subsystems).

C3D is a small imager which will take pictures of the earth and investigate radiation damage effects in space. It uses new sensor technology developed for space conditions.

TOPCAT (Topside Ionosphere Computer Assisted Tomography) will measure space weather conditions to inform users of the Global Positioning System (GPS) users using a dual-frequency GPS receiver designed especially for use in space.

With the remaining payloads due to be tested over the coming few weeks, the program continues confidently towards full integration in July.

UKube-1 will also take an educational subsystem called FUNcube, developed by the voluntary organisation AMSAT-UK, to encourage young people to learn about radio, space, physics and electronics. It contains a 1200 bps BPSK telemetry beacon and a 435/145 MHz linear transponder.

UKube-1 on BBC TV http://www.uk.amsat.org/5983

UKube-1 to launch in 2013 http://www.uk.amsat.org/5933

Listen to HORYU-2 on the Web

Andrei YO8SSQ and Cezar YO8TLC have made available a web based receiver to enable listeners to hear the new amateur radio satellite HORYU-2 when it’s within range of Romania.

The WebSDR receiver is located at the Astronomical Observatory Department of “Stefan cel Mare” University in Suceava, Romania, latitude 47.6417N longitude 26.2453E, grid locator KN37cp. The height ASL is 350m.

The hardware consists of two SDR receivers which are fed into 48 kHz sound cards on an AMD Sempron 2600+ computer running Vector Linux.

The web page displays a track showing the current position of HORYU-2 and also provides coverage of the 3.5 MHz (80m) band.

Listen to the HORYU-2 and 80m WebSDR at http://sdr.opt.ro:8901/

More information about HORYU-2 437.375 MHz (+/- 9 kHz Doppler shift) at
http://www.uk.amsat.org/7404

HORYU-2 Telemetry Software and Competition http://www.uk.amsat.org/7474

HORYU-2 CW Telemetry Decoder by DK3WN http://tinyurl.com/SatSoftwareDK3WN/

HORYU-2 Separation Video http://www.uk.amsat.org/7540

Keplerian Two Line Elements (TLEs / KEPS) for new satellites launched in past 30 days
http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/tle-new.txt

Amateur satellite Keplerian Two Line Elements (TLEs / KEPS) http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/amateur.txt

More information about the WebSDR project can be found at http://www.websdr.org/