AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-258

The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites

The news feed on http://www amsat org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat org

In this edition:

• Secondary Payloads On Board for First Vandenberg Falcon 9 Launch
• Radio Amateur in Crew Increment Headed to ISS in Late September
• Australia’s Own BLUEsat Ready for Launch
• ARISS Ham Video - EST and Simulations
• Upcoming ARISS Contacts

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-258 01 ANS-258 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 258 01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD September 15, 2013 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-258 01

Secondary Payloads On Board for First Vandenberg Falcon 9 Launch

DANDE, POPACS, and CUSat are all currently mated to the launch vehicle located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California The rocket is the SpaceX Falcon 9 v1 1 configuration with upgraded Merlin 1D engines, stretched fuel tanks, and a payload fairing The primary payload is the CSA’s Cassiope Currently the launch date is under review pending a thorough review of the results of the recent two static fire tests

POPACS:

The second P in POPACS (Polar Orbiting Passive Atmospheric Calibration Spheres) stands for Passive, meaning that the three spheres do not carry radios on board They are simple, polished ten-cm-diameter hollow Aluminum spheres, weighing 1 kg, 1 5 kg and 2 kg, respectively, that will be radar tracked by the Space Surveillance Network of the U S Strategic Command and optically tracked by an international network of students with Go To telescopes

The purpose of the mission is to measure the way in which the total density of Earth's upper atmosphere above 325 km varies in response to solar stimuli during the descending phase of Solar Cycle 24 and all of Solar Cycle 25 The spheres' expected lifetimes, after deployment into the initial 325 km x 1500 km 80 degree orbit that they will hopefully soon share with DANDE and CUSat, are 10, 12 5 and 15 years, depending, of course on solar activity

DANDE:

DANDE stands for “Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer ” Measuring drag and neutral particles in the lower atmosphere between 325-400 kilometers, DANDE will be measuring real time density, quantifying variations in altitude and over time, as well as providing in-situ model calibration data The satellite is a low-cost density, wind, and composition measuring instruments that will provide data for the calibration and validation of operational models and improve our understanding of the thermosphere Weighing approximately 84 pounds, DANDE is classified as a nano-satellite that is about 18 inches in diameter

The Colorado Space Grant Consortium (COSGC) has housed the project for approximately 7 years, in which about 150 students have been a part of the project through initial concept and design, to the current team of mission operators There are two instruments on board which allow DANDE to make in-situ measurements rather than being passive or only carrying accelerometers The subsystem ACC (Accelerometers) contains 6 accelerometer heads arranged in a circle which were built in-house The NMS subsystem (Neutral Mass Spectrometer) also known as Wind and Temperature Spectrometer will survey the variety and quantity of numerous neutral particles in the Thermosphere This data will be particularly interesting during periods of high solar activity do to atmospheric effects seen at these times in the polar regions of Earth

DANDE Telemetry System Information: Beacon Downlink Frequency: 436 75 MHz FM Callsign: dandecosgc Data Rate: 9600 baud Modulation: fsk Transmit Interval: every 15 seconds RF Power Output: 0 75 W Antenna Polarization: linear http://dande colorado edu/ http://spacegrant colorado edu/beacon/index php

CUSat:

CUSat is a multi-year effort to design, build, and launch an autonomous in-orbit inspection satellite system The satellite will allow us test the accuracy and viability of the carrier-phase differential GPS (CDGPS) algorithm We hope to prove the algorithm accurate to less than 10 cm by comparing the CDGPS navigation solution to the known distance between GPS antennas CUSat will use this relative GPS information to help determine and control its attitude This is the first step towards having a multi-satellite system use the CDGPS algorithm to aid in autonomous inspection CUSat is the winner of the University Nanosat-4 Program which aims to educate the future aerospace workforce and develop new space technologies

CUSat Telemetry Information: Beacon Downlink Frequency: 437 405 MHz FM Callsign: BOTTOM Data Rate: 1200 baud Modulation: afsk Transmit Interval: every 1 minute RF Power Output: 2 2 W Antenna Polarization: circular

[ANS thanks Miranda Link for the above information]

Radio Amateur in Crew Increment Headed to ISS in Late September

NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, KF5LJG, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryzanskiy are scheduled to launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft September 25 to join their Expedition 37 crewmates aboard the International Space Station Hopkins will be the first member of the 2009 NASA astronaut class to fly into space While he’s aboard the ISS, Hopkins will install the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Ham Video gear He received pre-flight training on how to commission the Amateur Radio digital video equipment

Hopkins will join Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, RN3FI, and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg, and Luca Parmitano, KF5KDP Yurchikhin, Nyberg, and Parmitano arrived in May and will return to Earth in November

[ANS thanks the ARRL for the above information]

Australia’s Own BLUEsat Ready for Launch

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) has declared its undergraduate student amateur radio satellite project BLUEsat is complete and ready to be launched into space

As the official final green light came it was to have a stratospheric balloon test flight near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales Talks continue on a space launch date

BLUEsat, a 260mm cube weighing around 13 kilograms, will carry a flight computer with transmissions to include a beacon and amateur packet radio using the AX 25 protocol in a “mode J” VHF/UHF configuration

Magnets will passively stabilize the satellite and align it with the Earth’s magnetic field, and it will be controlled via a dedicated communications groundstation VK2UNS at UNSW is equipped with a Yaesu FT-847 satellite transceiver

It is hoped BLUEsat will be placed in circular orbit at an altitude of around 750 km that will take it over the poles At this altitude, the satellite will travel around the Earth at a rate of around once every 90 minutes

Once in orbit BLUEsat will be a digital amateur radio satellite, which means that voice and data files can be uploaded to it by any amateur radio operator in the world over which the satellite passes

Students from UNSW will continue to be the primary operators of the satellite while it is in orbit and continue the educational focus throughout the full satellite life cycle

Through sponsors helping to pay the bills the student-led project has given a space experience that includes VK2UNS the ground control station

Facebook https://www facebook com/bluesat unsw

Basic Low Earth Orbit UNSW Experimental Satellite (BLUEsat) project http://www bluesat unsw edu au/

[ANS thanks Trevor, M5AKA, for the above information]

ARISS Ham Video - EST and Simulations

Ham Video Commissioning preparation is progressing An EST (Experiment Sequence Test) has been performed 28-29 August and Simulations tests were done 5-6 September 2013

The EST consisted of a series of tests, mainly of the ground segment For the Commissioning, the VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) station of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), located near Matera, southern Italy, will be used for receiving the DATV signals from the ISS For the EST, the IK1SLD ground station, situated at Casale Monferrato, northern Italy was used IK1SLD is one of the ARISS telebridge stations, fully equipped for VHF and UHF It was recently upgraded for S-band with a 1 2m dish, feed, downconverter and precision tracking motors

For the EST, a very low power transmitter, installed in the shack, generated signals on the Ham Video frequencies, transmitting a DATV recording at 1 3 and 2 0 MS/s and FEC ½ The DATV signal was received and decoded by the IK1SLD station and webstreamed to the BATC server

B USOC (Belgian User Support and Operations Center ? ESA) conducted operations B USOC and EAC (European Astronaut Center ? Cologne, Germany) specialists operated from Livorno at Kayser Itallia's laboratory, where a Ham Video unit, the so-called EBB (Elegant BreadBox), is operational Parties involved were interconnected per teleconference At Casale Monferrato, Claudio Ariotti IK1SLD and Piero Tognolatti I0KPT produced, received and webstreamed the signals in the different configurations as requested by B USOC ESA and ARISS observers participated to the EST teleconference After debriefing, the EST was declared successful

Simulations were done differently B USOC supervised from their offices in Brussels and ARISS responsibles Piero Tognolatti I0KPT and Jean Pierre Courjaud F6DZP operated from home The simulations were done in the Columbus mockup at EAC, where a non operational Ham Video model is installed This box is used for astronaut training on Ham Video A KuPS power supply was also used, as well as a camera similar to the one on board Columbus in space Ham Video transmissions were simulated in the different configurations (frequencies and symbol rates) A view of operations in the Columbus mockup was webstreamed to the participants ARISS operators simulated reception as if they were at the Matera ground station, taking into account expected timing between AOS and LOS They signaled AOS and requested crew at EAC to transmit in different configurations, according a pre-determined scenario At LOS, the test stopped and results were commented

Four passes were simulated this way, using both ARISS antennas An important goal of the simulations was to check the efficiency of communications between ground and crew Commands were initiated by ARISS operators (supposedly from Matera), received at B USOC, relayed to the Columbus Control Center at Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich and uplinked to ?crew? by EUROCOM The European ISS Control Center is called Col-CC and its spacecraft communicator's call sign is EUROCOM The Simulations were conducted successfully and lessons were learned for gaining time on transmitting commands This is important considering the limited 8 minutes contact time during real Commissioning

ARISS proposed to use our VHF uplink capabilities to crew for the Commissioning This was not acceptable with regard to ESA's commissioning protocol

Presently, ISS pass predictions for Matera are computed for several weeks starting mid October, The Matera VLBI activities are to be taken into account for determining usable passes Four passes will be needed to fullfil the Commissioning requirements

Ham Video Commissioning activities will be decided by ESA and NASA ISS Operations Hopefully the Commissioning will be planned during Expedition 37

Ham TV Bulletins are available at www ariss-eu org

[ANS thanks Gaston, ON4WF, for the above information]

Upcoming ARISS Contacts

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Istituto Comprensivo Statale "E Fermi - A Oggioni", Villasanta, Italy on 16 Sept The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 08:04 UTC The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds The contact will be direct between IR0ISS and IZ2GOJ The contact should be audible over Italy Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145 80 MHz downlink The contact is expected to be conducted in Italian

The Fermi Middle School is located in the centre of Villasanta near Monza (Milano) There are 403 students and 43 teachers while there are one class (25 students) that will be involved in the project These students are thirteen years old and they will be attending the third and final year of middle school

Another ARISS contact is scheduled with the Sarnelli De Donato Middle School, Polignano a Mare, Bari, Italy, on Saturday, 21Sept2013, at 10:03 UTC This contact with be via telebridge station W6SRJ

ARISS news is also available through Facebook and Twitter Visit ARISS on Facebook We can be found at Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) To receive our Twitter updates, follow @ARISS_status

ARISS is an international educational outreach program partnering the participating space agencies, NASA, Russian Space Agency, ESA, CNES, JAXA, and CSA, with the AMSAT and IARU organizations from participating countries

ARISS offers an opportunity for students to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly with crew members on-board the International Space Station Teachers, parents and communities see, first hand, how Amateur Radio and crew members on ISS can energize youngsters' interest in science, technology, and learning Further information on the ARISS program is available on the website http://www ariss org/ (graciously hosted by the Radio Amateurs of Canada)

[ANS thanks David, AA4KN, for the above information]

/EX

In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi- tional benefits Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office

Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information

73, This week's ANS Editor, Lee McLamb, KU4OS ku4os at amsat dot org s

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