NAV OSCAR 44 – PCSat (Recovery)
Starting Monday Morning (Dec 26, 2011), I will be trying to recover PCSAT. We need everyone to not use it until we give up. Just one single packet from a user during a pass will easily kill that pass’s chance of recovery. We only get one single packet chance per pass for recovery. Only when the call PCSAT-1 is readable in the beacon, the digipeater is active. So everyone, turn off those automatic beacons via PCSAT until further notice.
Thanks
Bob, WB4APR
The first student built amateur radio CubeSats to be sponsored by ESA’s Education Office have passed their Final Acceptance Review and have been declared ready for launch on board the maiden flight of Vega, the new ESA launcher.
The launch window for this historic lift-off opens on 26 January and ends in the first week of February 2012.
The seven university-built picosatellites, each weighing only 1 kilogram, were integrated with the devices that will carry them during launch – the P-PODs, or Poly-Picosatellite Orbital Deployers – between late October and mid November. Before they could be cleared for launch, they had to pass a detailed technical examination known as the Final Acceptance Review.
The single-unit CubeSats, whose development represented a highly valuable, if not unique hands-on learning experience for the university students that were involved – were developed by teams from 6 different European countries:
Frequencies and links for the satellites can be found in the following article from JE9PEL.
Read the article of the full ESA story.
JJ1ZUU tweet indicates FO-29 may resume operations soon, probably scheduled. Details will follow and the schedule propably be announced.The dutch astronaut André Kuipers is ready for takeoff.
Another two days and then for the second time Andre Kuipers will leaves to the International Space Station. A historic journey, because Kuipers will break various records. Thus he becomes the first Dutch astronaut in space for a long time, which is nearly six months. He is also the first Dutch astronaut who is launched for a second time. Other Dutch astronauts – Dr. Ockels and Louis van den Berg were “only” launched once.
As it looks now, the launch is on. The rocket is already on the launch pad and the sky over Baikonur space base is crystal clear. “Although it is very cold, so spectators should properly protect” warns Kuipers on his blog
In recent days there were many preparations for the voyage. Andre Kuipers and his colleagues had to inspect the Soyuzcapsule for the second time. This capsule brings Kuipers to the ISS. “We are very pleased. In a few days, this is will be our living room, bedroom, dining room, bathroom and attic for two days. Actually, it is also the hall – with the door – to our realhome for half year: the International Space Station. ”
The launch of André Kuipers can be seen live next Wednesday 21-dec-2011 on dutch television channel: Netherland 1 (13:20 pm to 14:45 o’clock CEST). You can follow Andre on any of his social media (Twitter or Facebook).
During his stay in the International Space Station, radio amateurs will have the opportunity to make a voice contact. Andre will be using the call PI9ISS and will use the following frequencies:
Downlink
145.800 MHz (FM)
Uplink
145.200 MHz (FM)
Homepage and other references:
New Equipment, New Location : Ready for Commanding
We now have a FUNcube dongle (FCD) installed. This is a basic software defined radio (SDR), and as its name suggests, it was originally produced to support a cubesat programme. It is no bigger than a USB memory stick and has an SMA connector for the antenna.
To make this work, we’ve made a relay box which can switch the antenna to the our ICom IC-746 tranceiver on transmit and the FCD on receive. We’ve decided to use an additional laptop to host the FCD, as the SDR application is quite processor hungry. The application produces a real-time ‘waterfall’ display and it also allows recording of the data stream for later replay, so if we receive a downlink signal, it is now easy to capture the evidence.
We’re working on how to import the TLEs for Prospero, so we can implement Doppler correction to the downlink frequency. This should then show only the signal from Prospero with the correct Doppler shift, and other signals should ‘shift about’ in the spectrum as Doppler correction is applied.
We’re running out of time before the winter break (end of next week), so we’d better start thinking about doing some Prospero commandings. At the end of last week we had to move our ground station equipment to free some office space for researchers at the lab. This move is complete and we should have an operational system ready for commandings. Details will be posted as they are decided.
Source: UCL Blog
The amateur radio satellite STARS-II is being developed by students at Kagawa University and consists of Mother satellite and Daughter satellite connected by tether.
STARS stands for Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite.
The mission will include formation flight, tether deployment, attitude control and the mother and daughter satellites will take pictures of each other.
It is porposed to fly a 80mW CW beacon and a 800mW AX25 1200bps telemetry downlink. Total mass is 8 kg.
Coordinated frequencies for CW 437.245 MHz (mother) and 437.255 MHz (daughter). FM downlinks 437.405 MHz (mother) and 437.425 MHz (daughter).
Communication Link:
Kagawa satellite development project STARS-II webpage