This week we successfully updated the flight software on the On-Board-Computer (OBC) of UWE-3. The redundant OBC of UWE-3 is capable to receive, store and flash software-updates while the satellite itself stays fully functional. After transmitting the software to UWE-3 we flashed the redundant micro-controller via the JTAG EEM cross connection and toggled the satellite to the controller running the new software.
After the software update the redundant controller seamlessly continued operations, now with new features available. Extended functionalities include support for additional measurements and experiments as well as new beacon frames.
As a very first test we initiated the new message beacon yesterday.
Thanks UWE-3 Team for sharing this information with the radio community.
1:Fm DP0UWG To DD0UWE [11:34:01R] Statistic 2014/06/03:
Rainer=2110 JA6PL=1416 JA1GDE=1127 DK3WN=948 VK5HI=904
EU1XX=666 LU4EOU=615 R4UAB=567 PE0SAT=372 IW0HLG=240
JA0CAW=229 JO1PTD=125 ON4HF=77 JA5BLZ=18 JE9PEL=6 PY4ZBZ=5
1:Fm DP0UWG To DD0UWE [11:36:01R]
UWE-3 News: Successful software update in space +++
New beacon features available soon +++
Thanks for your great support of UWE-3 +++
Following now the insertion statistics from 2014/06/03 +++
1:Fm DP0UWG To DD0UWE [11:36:12R]
This week we’re celebrating UWE-3 “Six months in Space” with a highlight created out of the on-board ADCS data recorded.
Attitude Determination during pass over Wuerzburg
Already in January the satellite obtained a precise attitude determination after in-orbit calibration of the magnetometers. With this, we have now compiled a graphical demonstration of its movement during a pass over Wuerzburg. The video shows the satellite’s rotation in 8x time lapse, based on an attitude determination recording during which every 2 seconds the current estimated quaternions have been sampled. The satellite’s rotation is mainly about the Body Z axis, which is the axis in which the antennas are deployed and in which the main magnetic dipole is located. Visible is also minor jitter due to sensor noise inherent to the attitude determination process.
Since the very first operation of UWE-3 we received outstanding support from the radio amateurs around the world. PE0SAT received the first Beacon over Europe at 21.11.2013 / 9:19 UTC followed by DK3WN at 11:26 UTC. Here a complete list of “followers” of UWE-3 including the date and UTC of the first received beacon.
Since 21 November 2013 we received already more then 7.000 beacon. This diagram shows the number of packets received by the individual HAM:
Plotted over a world map you see the location of UWE-3 generated out of the received beacons (without beacons from the ground station of Wuerzburg):
In our last News we informed you about the new UWE-3 Online Telemetry Decoder from DK3WN (Thank you Mike!). The transmission to our server is much easier now because the valuable beacons from you are directly “injected” into our database. The following plot shows the great success of the new online decoder including the test phase beginning in the middle of April. All previous data has been submitted by e-mail or ftp-upload:
GREAT THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Yours sincerely, UWE-3 Team
Thanks UWE-3 Team for keeping me/us informed and I am proud to be part of this experiment and group of enthusiasts. Lets hope that there will be a lot more opportunities to listen for that small cubesat.
The launch as you can see in this Youtube movie below was a success, the launch took place at 07:10 UTC from the Dombarovskiy facility.
Just a couple of minutes after the launch signals where received from FUNcube-1, these came from Amateur Radio Stations in South Africa and they filled the FUNcube-1 data warehouse for the first time.
My first pass was at 08:46 UTC and I had to make up my mind on with cubesats to track. I finally choose for monitor and record a frequency span between 437.350 – 437.540. In the middle of this span would CubeBUG-2 transmit its data. In meantime listen to Delfi-n3Xt at 145.870. When the pass started it was a overwhelming. Delfi-n3Xt pass coming via the VHF Icom 910H and the 192khz span of the FUNcube Dongle Pro+ showed a lot of signals being received. I wasn’t able to decode any 2400 baud BPSK signal from Delfi-n3Xt but after the pass when I analysed the IQ file that was recorded with SDR# I could decode signals from ZAcube-1, UWE-3 and CubeBUG-2.
The following frames are decoded from a recorded SDR IQ file, therefor the timestamps are of.
ZAcube-1 1k2 decode:
2013-11-21 09:11:07.750 UTC: [47 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 12 PID: F0 {I06^} 26 Payload Bytes
from 123456 to 012345:
1 > DC 0C 16 7A 61 63 75 62 65 30 31 2E 00 00 13 09 2C 0A DC 2C
21 > 06 7B 2C 0C 2E DC
Ü..zacube01.....,.Ü,.{,..Ü
UWE-3 9k6 decode:
2013-11-21 14:47:59.380 UTC: [60 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 3 PID: F0 {UI} 41 Payload Bytes
from DP0UWG to DD0UWE:
1 > 00 53 20 64 64 59 B3 21 02 FC 14 6A 13 00 00 18 6A 86 F4 42
21 > 59 5E 34 10 07 00 17 58 10 1F 00 17 36 01 F5 FD DE E8 F4 F5
41 > DC
.S ddY³!.ü.j....j†ôBY^4....X....6.õýÞèôõÜ
So far so good, I have 2Gb of IQ data that can be analyzed. This is what I can tell so far, the launch is a success and there are some teams that are still searching for there satellites. Good luck all, I’ll point my antenna’s to the sky when I am able to.
After analyzing the IQ files I also saw the data from Humsat-D, very strong 1200 baud GMSK data and Morse code, modulation type FM. Very difficult to decode the CW data. It is time I learned CW because the Computer isn’t able to decode the data.
Below an image with from left to right: HumSat-D CW, ZAcube 1k2 AFSK and UWE-3 9k6 FSK.
