Built by students at the University of Southern California (USC) Aeneas is a 3U CubeSat planned to launch August 2, 2012 from the Vandenburg Air Force Base on an Atlas-5 rocket into a 880 x 450 km 60.4 degree inclination orbit.

It aims to prove the concept of WiFi based tag tracking from Low Earth Orbit using the first ever 0.5 meter dish deployed from a CubeSat.

Small 1 watt asset tags will be on the ground and a similar transceiver is in feed piece of the deployed dish in the CubeSat. The satellite will surface track the position of the tag.

It plans to use a 436.00 MHz AX25 1200 bps beacon every 10 secs and a spread spectrum two-way link elsewhere in the 70cm band.

The WIFI transmitter will transmit on 2425.0 MHz with 1 watt of output power.

CP5, Cinema, CXBN, CSSWE, Horus, Re, ORSES and Aerocube-3 are expected to be deployed from the same launch.

More information at http://www.isi.edu/projects/serc/aeneas

Watch USC Aeneas Baseline Mission