CubeSat with Amateur Radio Transponder Set to Launch on February 15

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For those interested in listening for and/or tracking CubeSats, this was posted by ARRL:

CubeSat with Amateur Radio Transponder Set to Launch on February 15

AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NL have announced that at the Nayif-1 1U CubeSat, which includes a full FUNcube communication package, is set for launch on an Indian PSLV launch vehicle on February 15 at 0358 UTC.

PSLV Flight C-37, will carry more than 100 satellites into orbit.

Nayif-1 carries a U/V linear Amateur Radio transponder for SSB and CW and a telemetry transmitter. The initial plan called for a late-2015 launch.

Nayif-1 was a joint project of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) and American University of Sharjah (AUS). The United Arab Emirate’s first nanosatellite, Nayif-1 was developed by Emirati engineering students from AUS under the supervision of a team of engineers and specialists from MBRSC. The partnership between the two entities was aimed at providing hands-on satellite-manufacturing experience to engineering students.

Telemetry will be transmitted on 145.940 MHz, 1.2 KB BPSK (FUNcube standard). The SSB/CW transponder uplink passband is 435.045-435.015 MHz, and the downlink passband is 145.960-145.990 MHz.

AMSAT-UK is seeking post-launch reports from stations around the world, especially during the first few minutes and hours after launch. It is anticipated that the first signals may be heard in North America during the mid-evening hours on February 14 (local time).

A mission-specific telemetry dashboard is available. Information can be found on the web in PDF format at, https://funcubetest2.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/nayif-1_dashboard_notes_release_1-0b.pdf.

In a manner similar to that of the FUNcube-1 dashboard, this one will be capable of uploading the telemetry received to a central data warehouse. More information on the telemetry dashboard is available, as is a test file.

Initial spacecraft operation will be in a low-power “safe” mode, with just the telemetry transmitter activated.

I have had some fun tracking CubeSats in the past, and it is especially fun to watch your data appear on the dashboard history. And of course you are helping the research to boot!

Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.

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6 thoughts on “CubeSat with Amateur Radio Transponder Set to Launch on February 15

  1. ThaDood

    Just too bad that an old SATcom, or Anik, geo satellite can’t be modified for amateur repeater, or transponder use. It would be great to have such a bird up there for that with solar sunspot minimum going on HF.

    Reply
  2. Michael Black

    The irony is that OSCAR I was ground-breaking, a non-government and non-business satellite four years after Sputnik, but also showing that a rocket could be used to launch multiple satellites, yet it’s now hard to get a launch because it was successful.

    We’ve seen a shift. Fir a long time it was only ham satellites, and fairly spread out. OSCAR 4 or 5 was made in Australia, but it still seemed within AMSAT. Then we saw Russian and later Chinese satellites, still amateur radio, but maybe bit detached. I always wondered if the Russian satellites were done by hobbyists or a more government type thing.

    But for a long time it was about getting amateur satellites into orbit that facilitated communication. It was a learning curve and some of the bigger plans either blew up (with the rocket) or postponed because no launch could be had.

    Then at some point, there were a lot more satellites going up. University based, they nominally used amateur radio, but that seemed convenience, because ham radio was a cheap communication link, or to legitimize the launch.

    Then the gate opened wide. Even smaller satellites, so more could be launched, but less could be done with the satellite. OSCAR I was crude, just a beacon with bit of telemetry, it also had a very short life. But much was learned, including using a rocket for multiple launches. AMSAT doesn’t need to go back to then, but any group starting out is now in the same position. And yes, some of it seems to be doing it for the sake of doing it.

    It’s all helped by being able to buy things off the rack. “Make” has a three book series about building your own satellite, and that’s good, but it doesn’t mean everyone should build one. The hardest part isn’t building the satellite, it’s getting approval, and a launch.

    Some things could go up in the shuttle, or now operated from the space station, probably fewer slots, but a chance to do experiments without the overhead of an actual satellite, and not another item in orbit afterwards.

    Michael

    Reply
  3. 13dka

    Whenever I hear of yet another launch of some spacecraft taking 30, 50 or 100 of miniature sats into a LEO, which seems to happen several times a year, I can’t help thinking of the “Kessler effect”:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

    It seems that building one of those little buggers and getting it into space has become a huge fad among universities seeking prestige and public appeal in the past decade. More often than not, the actual scientific value seems to be of a rather redundant nature, and I think it should be allowed to question the benefit of greatly increasing the amount of future space debris, which can come at a high cost (see the article above). In short, every object added to the 17,000+ observable objects already floating around up there does not only add to, it multiplies the risk of a catastrophic chain reaction that has potential to destroy our ability to benefit from space altogether for a long, long time.

    Launching yet another ham radio cubesat appears to be particularly redundant to me. Not only that many hams pretty much lost track of what’s already up there, what’s operational and what’s not, to a degree that even renown ham sat tracking sites have trouble keeping up, this development is diametrically opposed to the actual usage of these satellites. While the tracking software shows a multitude of available transponders above the horizon, it’s always the same 2-3 sats getting some traffic, but mostly on weekends only. The high costs of equipment needed to work these sats effectively stands against a greatly declined thrill of working satellites in a world in which the sensation created by a Sputnik is merely a footnote of history for most people who are still chewing with their own teeth.

    The educational value of building a highly redundant payload like this is probably high, actually launching it into the LEO would be OK too, as long as this doesn’t become a pointless competition in littering the LEO with things no average earth citizen has any benefit from as it seems to happen nowadays, at the risk of helping the destruction of objects that are of actual importance for everyone,

    Reply
    1. Thomas

      I honestly don’t know enough about how much damage cubesats have done or will do to other satellites or spacecraft, but I’ve always assumed there was a methodology in place when launched. I figured they were deployed in a region where they’d cause less problems and probably eventually have a free-fall trajectory into the atmosphere, burning up on re-entry (sort of a self-destruct after estimated useful life).

      I can say that the value of developing, building and seeing a project like this come to fruition must be an amazing catalyst for future scientists.

      Reply
      1. 13dka

        All modern sats are supposed to either deorbit into the atmosphere or get a boost to a graveyard orbit at the end of their project lifetime. Only some nations adhere to corresponding treaties tho, and the problem is way more complex: any satellite can be hit by existing space debris while it’s up there, and this will produce more space debris that can hit more satellites…IOW the problem is not so much that the umpteenth (redundant IMO) ham- fun- joy- or middle school sat may *cause* a cascade effect, the problem is that it’s yet another piece of equipment that is a potential target and hence a multiplicator in a cascade effect that has been set off elsewhere. That’s why I think we should act way more careful shooting things up there for little benefit to all of mankind, because it may lead to future scientists not needing a catalyst for many space-based science areas anymore.

        Reply
        1. 13dka

          Just so you don’t get me wrong, I love technology and particularly satellites, when the shortwave sucks again, I’m usually monitoring and watching all kinds of sats and I try to learn something about them. My favorite object up there is actually a 52 years old piece of space junk (that still emits a few beeps and boops in malformed telemetry transmissions) on a polar orbit and as such it’s particularly prone to be part (if not the cause) of a cascade effect.

          I like it because it’s even a year older than me, it doesn’t like to work much and only when the sun is shining on it, it takes a while to come on then but some orbits it just doesn’t want to – much like myself. 🙂

          Reply

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