ALMASat-1
In the recent years, the space research activity has been characterized by the large number of university small satellites that have been built and launched. On one side, this allows the direct participation of students to a real space project, on the other side, being these projects characterised by short development times, it offers to scientists frequent opportunities to fly new experiments at a very low cost. In the II Faculty of Engineering of the University of Bologna, the Aerospace group in Forlì has started in 2003 a new microsatellite research program.
Mission
The ALMASat project, started in 2003 at University of Bologna in Forlì, shares the same design philosophy of the UNISAT program, with the additional challenge of implementing full three-axis attitude control since the very first mission. Along with its main educational purpose the goal is to offer the scientific community a low-cost and reliable bus to be used for a wide range of space-based experiments, where pointing control is an important requirement.
The micropropulsion system on-board the ALMASat-1 microsatellite is a nitrogen cold gas system which uses 12 microthrusters MEMS-based (Micro Electro-Mechanical System), in order to generate the required thrust level for the whole mission, about 0.75 mN for each thruster.
Orbital parameters
NORAD 38078 COSPAR designator 2012-006-B Inclination 69.485 RA of A. Node 230.525 Eccentricity 0.0775378 Argument of Perigee 39.675 Revs per day 14.04508394 Period 1h 42m 31s (102.52 min) Semi-major axis 7 256 km Perigee x Apogee 316 x 1 441 km BStar (drag term) 0.000572440 1/ER Mean anomaly 325.864
Downlink
437.465 MHz 1k2 AFSK FM
2407.850 MHz 38k4 FSK FM
Call
ALMSAT
Status
Launched 13-02-2012 10:00 UTC and active. Will be launched on ESA Vega maiden flight at the end of January
Telemetry
2012-02-13 12:11:16.280 UTC: [128 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 19 PID: F0 {UI!} 108 Payload Bytes
from ALMSAT to IW4DUL:
1 > CC 00 FF 00 00 65 21 C3 38 E9 5C 75 00 71 2F 00 21 D7 00 12
21 > 4C 00 00 08 0D DB DC 05 26 A0 01 01 10 23 03 50 3E 04 60 00
41 > 14 E0 71 06 D0 68 06 19 BF 00 0F FF 22 09 C1 00 09 B3 98 F9
61 > E7 99 40 00 98 B9 91 99 79 CB 15 80 00 98 61 19 99 51 10 98
81 > 84 23 9D 89 B4 FE C2 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
101 > 00 00 00 82 A8 00 00 03
13:54 UTC
2012-02-13 13:54:21.440 UTC: [126 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 19 PID: F0 {UI!} 107 Payload Bytes
from ALMSAT to IW4DUL:
1 > CC 00 FF 00 00 65 21 B3 38 E9 8C 74 00 81 28 00 11 D9 00 12
21 > 51 00 00 09 0D 90 05 26 40 02 01 00 1F 02 90 35 03 D0 00 18
41 > D0 42 04 70 48 04 8A 12 00 0F FF 20 BA 12 00 09 F9 9D 8A 31
61 > 9D B0 00 9E 09 E7 9E 9A 0A 11 00 00 9D 71 56 9D 71 33 9C E4
81 > 1C A5 69 B1 FE D1 E4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
101 > 00 00 82 A8 00 00 03
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