ZAcube-1 (TshepisoSAT) Telemetry
Category Archives: ZAcube-1
ZACube-1 (Tshepiso Sat) Telemetry
ZACube-1 (Tshepiso Sat) Telemetry 12-06-2014 20:17 UTC
1:Fm 123456 To 012345 [22:21:25R] 2014-06-12 20:26:37.480 UTC: [54 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)] 1 > C0 00 60 62 64 66 68 6A E0 62 64 66 68 6A 6C 61 03 F0 DB DC 21 > 0C 1D 20 20 20 20 54 73 68 65 70 69 73 6F 53 41 54 2E 53 9A 41 > 0C F8 2C 0A B5 2C 06 72 2C 29 2E DB DC C0
ZAcube-1 first image
Today I received an email from the ZAcube-1 ground station operators that they had received the first image made by ZAcube-1 (TshepisoSat).
Earlier this week a quick checkout of the payload board was done. The sub-system board was powered on and a few telemetry values were requested with all response values indicating good health. The board was successfully switched off again.
On the morning of 14 December the satellite was again commanded to switch on the payload board and a sequence of commands were sent to capture an image and store it in the on-board storage. During the following two passes the image was successfully downloaded using the CPUT/F’SATI built VHF/UHF radio transceiver in its 9k6 bps G3RUH/GMSK mode.
In the image the sun can be seen along with lens flare caused by the camera being pointed towards the sun. The black dot in the bottom right is most likely caused by overload of camera’s CMOS sensor by the sun. The spacecraft is not stabilised in three axis, so capturing images is a best effort affair (imaging is not the main focus of the mission). We can hopefully capture an image showing the earth in the upcoming days.
Original source: F’SATI news page
ZAcube-1 Telemetry 29-11-2013
ZAcube-1 Telemetry 29-11-2013 19:40 UTC
Thanks to the fantastic work of Mike DK3WN, there is now a simple telemetry decoder for ZAcube-1.
[30 Bytes TIME Frame] 1 > C0 09 32 30 31 33 2D 31 31 2D 32 39 20 31 39 3A 34 39 3A 30 21 > 38 2E 34 35 30 20 55 54 43 C0 À.2013-11-29 19:49:08.450 UTCÀ [47 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)] 1 > C0 00 60 62 64 66 68 6A E0 62 64 66 68 6A 6C 61 03 F0 DB DC 21 > 0C 16 7A 61 63 75 62 65 30 31 2E 00 0B 3A 2B 2C 0A CA 2C 06 41 > AB 2C 8F 2E DB DC C0 À.`bdfhjàbdfhjla.ðÛÜ..zacube01...:+,.Ê,.«,.ÛÜÀ
Support Mike, send him a nice message or make a donation through his Paypal account.
DNEPR Launch a succes
The DNEPR launch was/is a success.
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
CubeBUG-2 9k6 decode:
2013-11-21 14:59:10.800 UTC: [98 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 3 PID: F0 {UI} 78 Payload Bytes
from CUBEB2-6 to CQ:
1 > FF FF F0 00 00 14 CA 00 00 01 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 3D E0 00
21 > 00 00 00 AF 00 01 00 CA 1E 77 03 F7 02 C9 03 FF 03 FF 02 D9
41 > 02 B6 03 FF 03 3F 03 B6 03 C4 0A C7 05 01 C5 AA 19 F8 FB B8
61 > 03 DB FD DD FF 65 09 47 02 51 E3 8A FF 6C 00 00 00 00
ÿÿð...Ê..........=à....¯...Ê.w.÷.É.ÿ.ÿ.Ù.¶.ÿ.?.¶.Ä.Ç..Ū.øû¸.ÛýÝÿe.G.QãŠÿl....
In a later pass also an APRS message from CubeBUG-2:
1:Fm CUBEB2-6 To CQ [13:34:56R] :EMAIL :manolito@satellogic.com Upt: 04:41:43 Bat:7.90v Temp:27.6C Gyr:87.77d/s
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.
