[ans] ANS-111 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

From: "[RADIOCOMM LIST]" <list.admin@aus-city.com>

Date: April 20th 2013

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-111

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:

April 19 Soyuz-2-1B Launch Plans Cubesat Deployment on April 21
April 21 Antares Launch to Orbit Three PhoneSat Cubesats
April 25 China CZ-2D to Launch TURKSAT-3USAT Linear Transponder
May 3 Vega Launch from Kourou to Orbit ESTCube-1 CubeSat
AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Nominations Solicited
ARISS School Contacts
Order AMSAT/TAPR Dayton Banquet Tickets in the AMSAT Store
Registration for the SA AMSAT Space Symposium is Now Open
Inspiration and Success: The Story Behind N1LF's 1st Satellite QSO
RockOn 2013 University Rocket Science Workshop
Satellite Shorts From All Over

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-111 01 ANS-111 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 111 01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD April 21, 2013 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-111 01

Volunteers are needed to help at the AMSAT booth at Dayton *
Steve Belter N9IP, is looking for volunteers to help man the *
AMSAT booth during the 2013 Hamvention If you are willing *
to help at the Hamvention, please send an e-mail by April 30 *
to Steve Belter, n9ip@amsat org *
*
Monitor the 'AMSAT at Dayton Hamvention 2013' link on the new *
AMSAT Web Site http://www amsat org for the latest AMSAT at *
Dayton news and developments *

April 19 Soyuz-2-1B Launch Plans Cubesat Deployment on April 21

A Soyuz-2-1b from the Baikonur launch facility, in Kazakhstan on April 19, 2013 now has four cubesat missions using amateur radio frequencies and three commercial and science missions on-orbit:

Satellite Downlink Mode ---------- --------------- ------------------ OSSI-1 145 980/437 525 CW/1200bps (Amateur Band) SOMP 437 485 1200, 9600bps BPSK (Amateur Band) BEESAT-2/3 435 950 4800bps GMSK/Mobitex (Amateur Band) Bion-M1 Biological research satellites AIST Measurement of the Earth's geomagnetic field 435 MHz downlink/145 MHz command & control uplink Dove-2 Commercial technology demonstration mission 450 MHz band downlink

Additional information and photos can be viewed on the AMSAT-UK web: http://amsat-uk org/2013/04/17/soyuz-cubesat-launch/

This page includes additional information on the planned deployment of the cubesats from the P-POD canisters: "Unusually the CubeSats will not be deployed straight after launch All four CubeSats: OSSI-1, BEESAT-3, SOMP, and BEESAT-2 will be deployed around 10:45 UTC on Sunday, April 21 Until then orbital maneuvers will be car- ried out to achieve a circular orbit at 575 km altitude "

OSSI-1 Deployed on April 19

145 980 MHz CW, 437 525 MHz 1k2

OSSI-1, the Open Source Satellite Initiative satellite is a cubesat developed by Hojun Song DS1SBO In addition to the radio beacons OSSI-1 also carries a 44 watt LED optical beacon to flash Morse Code messages to observers on Earth

The development of the satellite has been documented on the Open Source Satellite Initiative Blog http://opensat cc/blog/ and the Wiki http://opensat cc/wiki/ http://www youtube com/watch?v=YUOL0zSY6cg AMSAT-UK coverage can be read at: http://amsat-uk org/2013/04/19/ossi-1-amateur-radio-cubesat-launched/

BEESAT 3, BEESAT 2, SOMP, AIST and Dove-2 are expected to be separat- ed from BION M1 in two batches on Sunday, April 21

SOMP

Downlink on 437 485 MHz including CW, 1k2 and 9k6 BPSK, AX25 FSK, and AO40 standard 400bit/s BPSK

The Student Oxygen Measurement Project (SOMP) is a cubesat devel- oped by students of the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, organized in the Students Research Group for Spacecraft Engineer- ing in Dresden (STARD) SOMP will be a standard sized single CubeSat with one payload side and five sides with two solar cells each

http://phpweb tu-dresden de/stard/SOMP/?lang=en http://tinyurl com/SOMP-AMSAT-UK-Posting

BEESAT-2/3 (Berlin Experimental and Educational Satellite) 435 950 MHz, 4k8 GMSK (both satellites)

BEESAT-2 is a cubesat-sized vehicle carries a technology experiment using gyros and sensors for precise orientation

BEESat-3 is another cubesat-sized vehicle that will test high-speed data links (up to 1MB/s)

http://www raumfahrttechnik tu-berlin de/beesat/

The above cubesat missions and the scientific/commercial missions are also documented on Mineo Wakita's (JE9PEL) web page at: http://www ne jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/ossisomp htm

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK and Mineo Wakita, JE9PEL for the above infor- mation]

April 21 Antares Launch to Orbit Three PhoneSat Cubesats

Three PhoneSat cubesats are now on-orbit following the launch of the Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares(TM) rocket from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in eastern Virginia The originally scheduled April 17 launch attempt was scrubbed April 21 is the next planned launch attempt

All three of the Phonesat cubesats carries an amateur radio payload on 437 425 MHz Each cubesat will transmit during individual time slots All three satellites transmit using AFSK (1200 bps) modula- tion, AX 25 packet coding and have vertical linear polarization The two PhoneSat 1 0 satellites, Graham and Bell, transmit with a period- icity of respectively 28 seconds and 30 seconds The PhoneSat 2 0 beta satellite, Alexander, transmit with a periodicity of 25 seconds

The PhoneSat web at http://www phonesat org/ provides access to the "Dashboard" allowing you to track the location of our satellites in real time Detailed information on the downlink packet telemetry format can be found on this page The callsign will be KJ6KRW

The orbit is very low (270km x 300km, 51 6deg) and the cubesats are expected to only remain on-orbit for two weeks The satellites are battery powered with no additional charging from solar cells

The Dove-2 commercial satellite is believed to use 2420 0 MHz for its downlink

[ANS thanks the PhoneSat Team for the above information]

April 25 China CZ-2D to Launch TURKSAT-3USAT Linear Transponder

TAMSAT reports the TURKSAT-3USAT, the first communication nanosatel- lite mission of ITU, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey is expected to launch on April 25 aboard China's Chang Zheng-2D rocket Also aboard this launch will be Ecuador's NEE 01 Pegaso 1U cubesat and Argentina's CubeBug-1 satellite

TURKSAT-3USAT is a three unit CubeSat developed to provide SSB/CW communications in a 680 km Low Earth Orbit It will fly a V/U linear transponder developed by TAMSAT, the Turkish Amateur Satellite Tech- nologies Organisation

Uplink center frequency 145 965 MHz (145 940-145 990 MHz bandwidth) Receive sensitivity -120 dBm
Downlink center frequency 435 225 MHz (435 200-435 250 MHz bandwidth) Output power 30 dBm (1W)
CW beacon on 437 225 MHz

Additional information can be accessed on-line at: http://www tamsat org tr/tr/turksat-3usat-is-almost-ready/ http://www uk amsat org/?p=12670

CUBEBUG-1 Heading for Orbit Includes Amateur Radio Digipeater

CubeBug-1 is the first technology demonstration mission for a new CubeSat platform design (mechanics, hardware and software) intended to be released as Open Source and Open Hardware for its use in Ama- teur projects, University projects and research labs

The project is sponsored by the Argentina Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation

Payloads on this first mission include: + An ARM based on-board computer + A nano-reaction wheel with its driver circuit + A low resolution camera + All based on COTS components

CubeBug-1 is a 2U CubeSat and the team are planning to use half duplex communications on 437 445 MHz with 9k6 GMSK data Tele- metry information is at http://1 cubebug org/coms/telemetry

After the technology demonstration part of the mission is over, the satellite will enter a mode that will include services to the Ama- teur radio community, including a Digipeater, science data downloads from the payload (including images if possible)

Watch a CubeBug-1 video at http://vimeo com/56055215

CubeBug-1 website http://1 cubebug org/

Follow CubeBug-1 on Twitter @CubeBug1

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK, the CubeBug Team and TAMSAT for the above information]

May 3 Vega Launch from Kourou to Orbit ESTCube-1 CubeSat

Estonias first CubeSat ESTCube-1, amateur radio callsign ES5E/S, is planned to launch from the ESA Spaceport in Kourou in the Cari- bbean on May 3, 2013 aboard an ESA VEGA rocket

Built by students at the University of Tartu ESTCube-1 the main mission of the satellite is to test electric solar wind sail tech- nology, a novel space propulsion technology that could revolution- alize transportation within the solar system It will deploy a 10 meter conductive electrodynamic tether and the force interacting with the tether will be measured

The IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel have pub- lished these frequencies for ESTCube-1:

437 250 MHz CW beacon, callsign ES5E/S
437 505 MHz 9600 bps AX 25 telemetry, callsign ES5E-11

More information and a video has been posted at: http://amsat-uk org/?p=14774

Additional news of the launch is posted at: http://tinyurl com/April-Vega-Launch (Space-Travel com)

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK and the University of Tartu ESTCube-1 Team for the above information]

AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Nominations Solicited

It is time to submit nominations for the upcoming open seats on the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors A nomination requires either one Member Society or five current individual members in good standing to nominate an AMSAT member for the position Four director's terms expire this year: Barry Baines, WD4ASW, Alan Biddle, WA4SCA, Drew Glasbrenner, K04MA, and Tony Monteiro, AA2TX

In addition to traditional submission of written nominations, which remains unchanged and is the preferred method, nominations may be made by electronic means These include e-mail, FAX, or electronic image of a petition Electronic petitions should be sent to MARTHA at AMSAT ORG or faxed to 301-608-3410 Written nominations, consisting of names, calls and individual signatures should be mailed to: AMSAT-NA, 850 Sligo Ave #600, Silver Spring, MD, 20910 No matter what means is used, petitions MUST arrive no later than June 15th at the AMSAT-NA office If the nomination is a traditional written nomination, no other action is required If it is other than this, i e electronic, a verifying traditional written petition MUST be received at the AMSAT-NA office at the above address within 7 days following the close of nominations on June 15th ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS WITHOUT THIS SECOND, WRITTEN VERIFICATION ARE NOT VALID UNDER THE EXISTING AMSAT-NA BYLAWS

[ANS thanks Alan, WA4SCA, AMSAT Corporate Secretary for the above information]

ARISS School Contacts

John McCrae High School, Nepean, Ontario, Canada

The International Space Station school contact with participants at John McCrae High School, Nepean, Ontario, Canada on 17 April was successful The contact was completed via telebridge between OR4ISS and IK1SLD

John McCrae Secondary school is named after the Canadian poet and doctor who during World War I, wrote the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields" With this heritage in mind the school hosts large community Remembrance Day ceremonies every November 11 and celebrates community works of art in the "Red Poppy" gallery John McCrae students consistently rank among the best academic perform- ers in the province, gaining post secondary acceptance across North America and winning many entrance scholarships

Gray Mountain Primary School, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

The International Space Station school contact with participants at Gray Mountain Primary School, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada on 23 April was successful The contact was completed via telebridge with IK1SLD

The incredible opportunity to speak with the ISS and Chris Hadfield has sparked a frenzy of space related themes and ideas throughout the school and inspired the community The small school has been trans- formed into a space education station with student-created learning displays and artwork throughout The kids have been reading and writ- ing using space to inspire imaginations and incorporating space ex- ploration into math and science lessons A local artist is coming to build a life size Soyuz spacecraft out of recycled materials with the Grade 2s and 3s

Upcoming School Contacts This Week:

Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME, telebridge via IK1SLD on Tuesday, April 23 at 14:38:47 UTC
Maani Ulujuk Ilinniarvik (MUI), Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada, telebridge via IK1SLD on Thursday, April 25 at 14:34:36 UTC
Istituto d'Istruzione Superiore Euclide, Bari, Italy, telebridge via IZ7RTN on Saturday, April 27 at 11:17:19 UTC

ARISS is requesting listener reports for the above contacts Due to issues with the Kenwood radio that are not fully understood at pre- sent, the Ericsson radio is going to be used for these contacts ARISS thanks everyone in advance for their assistance

[ANS thanks ARISS for the above information]

Order AMSAT/TAPR Dayton Banquet Tickets in the AMSAT Store

AMSAT Hotel News

Per Martha at the AMSAT Office, the entire block of AMSAT rooms for Hamvention 2013 are now taken, and no more will be available

Friday Evening AMSAT/TAPR Banquet at Dayton

Tickets for the dinner are $30 each, and must be purchased from the AMSAT Store at http://store amsat org/catalog/ by Tuesday, May 14

The dinner will be held at:

The Kohler Presidential Banquet Center 4548 Presidential Way Kettering, OH 45429

Doors open at 1830 for a cash bar with buffet dinner served at 1915

Seating is limited to the number of meals we reserve with the Kohler caterers, based on the number of tickets sold by the deadline Tick- ets will not be sold at Dayton, but tickets purchased online may be collected at the AMSAT booth (444-446 and 433-435)

Join us for a fun evening with good food, great company, and an outstanding speaker

This year's speaker will be Bruce Perens, K6BP, with a humorous his- tory of technology evangelism: "The Evangelist's Dilemma: Driving New Ideas With Nothing But Words " As you can imagine, when you're promoting new ideas, there are things that inevitably go wrong Bruce will pull examples from his history with Open Source, No-Code, Soft- ware Freedom, Codec2, and Open Hardware, and he'll introduce a few of the new battle grounds

[ANS thanks AMSAT's 2013 Dayton Committee for the above information]

Registration for the SA AMSAT Space Symposium is Now Open

SA AMSAT will hold its annual space symposium in Pretoria at the Innovation Hub on Saturday 18 May 2012 The keynote speaker will be McLean Sibanda, the CEO of the Innovation Hub with the subject "Innovation is everyone's business" The agenda is packed with in- teresting presentations and demonstrations The symposium is spon- sored by Telkom

Make your booking now to benefit from the early registration package Full details and the registration form are available on http://www amsatsa org za/SpceSymp2013 htm

SARL and SA AMSAT members enjoy preferential rates The registration fee includes a CD of all the papers as well as refreshments and a light lunch

[ANS thanks the SARL News in English for April 13, 2013 for the above information]

Inspiration and Success: The Story Behind N1LF's 1st Satellite QSO

Les Rayburn, N1LF sent a message to the amsat-bb on April 14 which describes his ham radio journey to his first amateur satellite con- tact via FO-29

Les wrote: I've been a ham well over 40 years, since my childhood Back then, I could barely afford the Heathkit transmitter, Halicrafters receiver, knife switch, and longwire antenna that made up my shack

My elmer used to let me borrow his copy of QST and I'd dream about all the great adventures that I'd have "someday" in ham radio Being a child of the Space Age, key among them were anything related to the New Frontier

EME (Moonbounce), Meteor Scatter, and satellites all seemed like the stuff of science fiction---and I longed to experience them all But they were exotic, and required equipment far beyond my reach I resolved to accomplish them all someday and added them to a sort of ham radio "bucket list" that I hoped to accomplish before my ham career was over

Five years ago, shortly after getting started in weak signal VHF work, I checked off the first item on that list Working meteor scatter contacts with the aid of WSJT software, and during a Per- seid shower, even using SSB What a thrill to make contacts off the ionized gasses of those tiny rocks Thanks Joe Taylor!

Tonight, I managed to check off a second I worked Art, K4YYL on FO-29, a Japanese amateur satellite!

My journey to the "birds" started about a month ago when I joined AMSAT, determined that 2013 was going to be "the year" when I fin- ally got active on satellites I purchased a copy of SATPC32 soft- ware, because I knew that it could control my IC-910H--hopefully making it easier to get active

After listening to a few passes on both the FM and the SSB/CW birds, I decided to try my luck on the less-crowded FO-29 A brief CQ was quickly answered by Art I adjusted the tuning knob just a bit to correct for the Doppler effect, and voila! there he was clear as a bell

We had a brief QSO of perhaps ten minutes or so, and then we signed I was quickly called by K4FEG near Memphis in EM55---who just wanted to welcome me to the birds!

Man, what a thrill! And it wasn't tough at all

I'm using a 7 element 432 antenna tilted up to 15 degrees (fixed) and a 6 element 2 Meter beam tilted up to about 10 degrees (fixed) both inside my crowded attic The SSB Electronics pre-amp helps a ton on 432, and the 1/2" hardline makes sure that I don't lose too much signal So far, I've been able to copy the birds down to about 2 degrees above the horizon using this setup

Now to attempt that EME contact! I've got a 12 element Yagi just waiting to deploy in the driveway once the weather warms a bit Hop- ing to use WSJT to work one of the monster stations on EME All this in a deed-restricted HOA neighborhood

I wasted 35+ years on HF----man, all the fun really is in the World Above 50 MHz! Thanks for helping to make a boy's dreams come true at age 51!

[ANS thanks and congratulates Les Rayburn, N1LF for the above information]

RockOn 2013 University Rocket Science Workshop

U S university and community college faculty and students are invited to a weeklong workshop to learn how to build and launch a scientific experiment into space NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is hosting the RockOn 2013 workshop June 15-20, 2013, in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia Workshop participants must be U S citizens The registration dead line for the workshop is May 1, 2013

The hands-on workshop teaches participants to build experiments that fly on sounding rockets During the week, participants will work to- gether in teams of three to construct and integrate a sounding rocket payload from a kit On the fifth day of the workshop, the experiments will fly on a sounding rocket expected to reach an altitude of more than 70 miles

Each experiment will provide valuable scientific data, analyzed as part of the student-led science and engineering research The pro- gram engages faculty and students in science, technology, engineer- ing and mathematics skills critical to NASA's future engineering, scientific and technical missions

For more information about RockOn and to register online, visit: http://spacegrant colorado edu/national-programs/rockon-2013-home

Questions about the workshop or the registration process should be directed to Chris Koehler by email at koehler@colorado edu or by telephone at 303-492-3141

[ANS thanks the NASA Education Express Message -- April 18, 2013 for the above information]

Satellite Shorts From All Over

A web-based Software Defined Radio for the 5, 7 and 14 MHz bands is now available on the new RSGB website The "Web SDR receiver" link can be found under the "MyRSGB" drop-down menu Also on the new site are "Live DX Cluster" and "Live solar data" pages under the "News" drop-down menu See: http://www rsgb org/
The Florida Today newspaper published a story about the Merritt Island High School CubeSat project called StangSat See: http://amsat-uk org/2013/04/11/merritt-island-high-students-cubesat/
Video from the CanSat Leader Training Program is posted at: http://www youtube com/watch?v=SwK3dLrUmEQ&feature=player_embedded CanSats are tiny satellites, built to fit in the same space as a soda-can UNISEC is running a training program in Japan later this year, to train people on how to build and teach building of these ingenious devices See: http://www unisec jp/flash/index-e html (via Southgate)
NASA has posted videos celebrating Earth Month and specifically Earth Day (April 22) from ISS imagery: http://www youtube com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y0Q0Hene1LY Another Earth Month video from satellite imagery is posted at: http://www youtube com/watch?v=X2c8Ozis-mo&feature=player_embedded
The Goddard Space Flight Center posted the best views of Earth from space in the last year, including true color satellite images, Earth science data visualizations, time lapses from the Interna- tional Space Station, and computer models: http://www youtube com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sckOSMf-LpY
Two UrtheCast cameras - one medium-resolution still camera and one high-resolution video camera are planned for launch on the Progress 53P cargo supply mission on October 16, 2013 The cameras will be installed on the Zvezda Service Module of the Russian segment of the ISS, during its crew spacewalks Soon after installation, Earth imagery and video will begin transmitting to ground stations across the globe via an existing high-speed downlink from the ISS, then streamed to the web Read the full story at: http://spaceref com/news/viewpr html?pid=40490

[ANS thanks everyone 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 And with that please keep in mind that the integral of (1/cabin)d(cabin) is a natural log cabin, of course!

73, This week's ANS Editor, JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM K9JKM at amsat dot org

Via the ANS mailing list courtesy of AMSAT-NA http://amsat org/mailman/listinfo/ans

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