AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-158
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:
* OSCAR Numbers Assigned for BRICsat (NO-83) and PSAT (NO-84)
* 2015 AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Nominations Notice
* May/June 2015 AMSAT Journal is Complete
* Fox 1C Engineering Model Update Video
* Program for SA AMSAT Symposium Announced
* Call For Papers: 2015 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference
* Sailboat Expedition to Grid DM02 Begins June 10
* AMSAT Will be at Ham-Com 2015
* AMSAT Events
* ARISS News
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-158.01
ANS-158 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 158.01
>From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
DATE June 7, 2015
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-158.01
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OSCAR Numbers Assigned for BRICsat (NO-83) and PSAT (NO-84)
The following message has been sent to Bob Bruninga, WB4APR and the team
at the
US Naval Academy.
"Bob:
You have requested OSCAR numbers for BRICsat and PSAT built by you and your
associates at the U.S. Naval Academy.
From everything I can determine, these satellites meet all of the
requirements
for OSCAR designations.
Therefore, by the authority vested in me by the AMSAT-NA President, I hereby
confer the designation, Naval Academy OSCAR 83 on BRICsat amd Naval Academy
OSCAR 84 on PSAT These designations can, of course, for convenience, be
shortened to NO-83 and NO-84.
I, and the entire amateur satellite community, hope for successful missions
for both NO-83 and NO-84 and congratulate you and the rest of the Naval
Academy
team who designed, built and tested these two OSCAR spacecraft.
73,
William A. (Bill) Tynan, W3XO
OSCAR Number Administrator"
NO-84 PSAT, a student satellite project named in honor of USNA alum
Bradford Parkinson, of GPS fame, contains an APRS transponder for relaying
remote telemetry, sensor, and user data from remote users and Amateur Radio
environmental experiments or other data sources back to Amateur Radio
experimenters via a global network of Internet-linked ground stations.
PSAT is another APRS satelliite that can digipeat user packets just like the
original PCSAT (NO44) and the packet system on the ISS. PSAT also
supports the
same digipeating alias of ARISS so that users do not have to change any
parameters when using any of these three APRS transponders.
see
http://www.aprs.org/psat.html
NO-83 BRICsat-P (Ballistic Reinforced Communication Satellite) is a low cost
1.5U CubeSat built by the US Naval Academy Satellite Lab in
collaboration with
George Washington University, that will demonstrate on-orbit operation of a
Micro-Cathode Arc Thruster (µCAT) electric propulsion system and carries an
Amateur communication payload.
see
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/bricsat-p.htm
Frequencies
PSAT: 145.825 – 1200 baud AX.25 telemetry – digi off
PSAT PSK31-5: 435.350 FM down, 28.120 SSB PK31 uplink – Brno University
Transponder
BRICsat: 437.975 – 9600 baud telemetry evry 20s
BRICsat PSK31-6 – same as PSAT but PSK TLM on 375 Hz (PSAT on 315 Hz)
[ANS thanks Bill Tynan, W3XO for the above information]
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2015 AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Nominations Notice
It is time to submit nominations for the upcoming AMSAT-NA Board of
Directors election. Four director's terms expire this year: Barry Baines,
WD4ASW, Alan Biddle, WA4SCA, Mark Hammond, N8MH, and Jerry Buxton, N0JY. In
addition, up to two Alternates may be elected for one year terms.
A valid nomination requires either one Member Society or five current
individual members in good standing to nominate an AMSAT-NA member for
Director. Written nominations, consisting of the nominee's name and call,
and the nominating individual's names, calls and individual signatures
should be mailed to: AMSAT-NA, 10605 Concord St, #304 Kensington, MD
20895-2526.
In addition to traditional submissions of written nominations, which is the
preferred method, the intent to nominate someone may be made by electronic
means. These include e-mail, Fax, or electronic image of a petition.
Electronic petitions should be sent to or Faxed to (301)
822-4371.
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 Biddle, WA4SCA, AMSAT-NA Corporate Secretary for the above
information]
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May/June 2015 AMSAT Journal is Complete
The May/June 2015 AMSAT Journal is complete and has been sent to the
print shop. The AMSAT Journal is a key membership benefit, mailed to
all members six times a year. If you are a member of AMSAT look for
your copy to arrive in your mailbox within a few weeks.
In this issue you will find ...
+ The Apogee View column by AMSAT President Barry Baines, WD4ASW
+ AMSAT-NA Opportunity for Ride-share to Geosynchronous Orbit
+ Fox-1A on the Road to Vandenberg
+ Getting on the Air With Fox-1A
+ Minutes of the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors Teleconference
by AMSAT Corporate Secretary, Alan Biddle, WA4SCA
+ CNCTRK - A LinuxCNC Based Satellite Tracking System
by Bob Freeman, KI4SBL
+ US Naval Academy Launches PSAT, BRICsat, and USS Langley
Cubesats by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
+ Extreme DXing on FO-29 with a Portable Station
by Hector Martinez, CO6CBF/W5CBF
+ Radio Amateurs invited to test APRS on Duchifat-1
+ Planetary Society Lightsail Launched
+ CAMSAT Press Release: Multiple Amateur Satellite Launch in July
+ AMSAT Activities at Greater Houston Hamfest 2015
by Allen Mattis, N5AFV -and- Andy MacAllister, W5ACM
+ Monitoring Satellites Outside the Amateur Bands by Alex
Thanks to all who contributed to this issue and to the AMSAT Journa;
editorial team: Bernhard, VA6BMJ; Douglas, KA2UPW/5; James, K3JPH;
and Joe, KB6IGK.
Please send your articles, photos, reports of operating activities
to . See
http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=1709
for anauthor's guide. The Journal editors will be happy to work with you
to get into print!
[ANS thanks the AMSAT Journal editorial team for the above information]
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Fox 1C Engineering Model Update Video
A video update on Fox 1C Engineering Model from Fox Labs, Texas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdx3...ature=youtu.be
[ANS thanks Jerry, N0JY, AMSAT Vice President for Engineering for the above
information]
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Program for SA AMSAT Symposium Announced
The program has been announced for the SA AMSAT Space Symposium 2015. The
Symposium will be on June 20, 2015 at the Innovation Centre, Pretoria, South
Africa.
See http://www.amsatsa.org.za/ for full details of the Symposium.
Speakers include:
+ Make Satellites your next journey into Amateur Radio
Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, President SA AMSAT
+ Keynote address - South Africa's contribution to space operations
Raoul C Hodges, Managing Director, SANSA Space Operations
+ Gossamer sails for satellite deorbiting
Lourens Visagie, ADCS Functional Area Engineer
Space Advisory Company
+ ZACube-2: The successor to Africa's first nanosatellite.
Danie de Villiers, Creative Technologist MTech/MSc Electronic
Engineering CPUT
The satellite will serve as technology demonstrator for essential
subsystems and form the basis on which an innovative Software
Defined Radio platform will be developed as primary payload.
Secondary payload includes imaging capbilities
+ ZS6SRC - BACAR programme - Stimulating Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics with high performance learners.
Christo Kriek ZR6LJK
+ KLETSKOUS -getting Africa into space
Hannes Coetzee ZS6BZP, KLETSKOUS Project leader
+ Kletskous Space frame - From concept to experimental model
Deon Coetzee ZR1DX
+ Methods to increase the strength-to-weight ratio
of a cube-satellite
Johannes Francois Oberholzer
Stellenbosch University: Industrial Engineering Department
+ KLETSKOUS power unit - From concept to first prototype -
Fritz Sutherland Jnr ZS6FSJ, Kletskous team
+ KLETSKOUS Communication Data Structure
Brian Mckenzie ZS6BMN, Kletskous team
+ Second Proto type of the Transponder
Jacques Roux ZR1ADC, Kletskous team
+ Development of ground control at VUT - B.Tech laboratory upgrade
Riaan Greeff, ZS4PR, Vaal University of Technology
The presentations will be followed by the Annual General Meeting.
[ANS thanks SA AMSAT for the above information]
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Call For Papers: 2015 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference
We're soliciting technical papers for presentation at the 34th Annual
ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference, to be held October 9-11 in
Chicago, Illinois. Papers will also be published in the Conference
Proceedings.
You do not have to attend the conference to have your paper included in the
Proceedings. The submission deadline is August 17, 2015.
E-mail your submission to Maty Weinberg at ARRL Headquarters at
>
Please to do not send zip files as these will be rejected by our e-mail
server.
[ANS thanks ARRL and TAPR for the above information]
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Sailboat Expedition to Grid DM02 Begins June 10
Bud, N7CW; Jim, K6ZH; and Phil, N0KE, plan to activate Grid DM02 from a
sailboat expedition to the waters near San Clemente Island off of the
southern California coast. Departure from San Diego will be on Wednesday,
June 10 aboard a 49' sailboat. The team plans to be on the air sometime late
Wednesday, through sometime on Sunday, June 14, including most of the VHF
contest. Unfortunately, they have to leave before the end of the contest
because the Navy has scheduled exercises in the area on Monday.
Activity includes 6 M, 2 M, probably 432, 1296 and satellites. Phil is
responsible for everything other than 6 M. They plan to look for meteor
scatter every morning and perhaps the evenings, unless there is Es. Since
there is no cell service they will be in contact with pilot stations on 2 M
FM in order to announce ourselves on Ping Jockey. If you don't use meteor
scatter, it's not too late to learn! Otherwise you will have to listen for a
very short (distance) Es opening or backscatter or some other nearly
impossible propagation mode.
The expedition will be running about 500 W and a 3 el yagi (due to
constraints from having to mount the antenna on a sailboat). They will use
the call K6ZH. Watch for packet spots announcing their transmit frequency.
[ANS thanks Bud, N7CW and Patrick, WD9EWK for the above information]
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AMSAT Will be at Ham-Com 2015
If you're going to Ham-Com 2015 at the Irving Convention Center in the
Dallas - Ft. Worth area on June 12 to 13 look for AMSAT in booth #103. Also,
check the Ham-Com program for the presentation by Clayton Coleman W5PFG.
Clayton is an active member of AMSAT and the ARRL with a passion for Amateur
Radio in Space. Having activated over 100 grid squares, Clayton enjoys
helping others learn how to use minimal equipment
to enjoy our fleet of OSCAR's.
[ANS thanks Ham-Com for the above information]
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AMSAT Events
Information about AMSAT activities at other important events around
the country. Examples of these events are radio club meetings where
AMSAT Area Coordinators give presentations, demonstrations of working
amateur satellites, and hamfests with an AMSAT presence (a table with
AMSAT literature and merchandise, sometimes also with presentations,
forums, and/or demonstrations).
*Friday and Saturday, 12-13 June 2015 – HAM-COM in Irving TX (west of
Dallas)
*Thursday, 9 July 2015 – presentation for the Escondido Amateur Radio
Society in Escondido CA
*Friday and Saturday, 7-8 August 2015 – Austin Summerfest in Austin TX
*Saturday and Sunday, 22-23 August 2015 – Boxboro Hamfest and ARRL
New England Convention in Boxborough MA
*Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, October 16-18 2015, AMSAT Symposium in
Dayton OH (Dayton Crown Plaza)
[ANS thanks AMSAT-NA for the above information]
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ARISS News
Upcoming ARISS Contacts
It is unlikely that there will be any contacts with the Columbus module
station until after a crew change, which will probably occur in late June or
July.
Watch
http://www.ariss.org/upcoming-contacts.html
for information about upcoming contacts as they are scheduled.
[ANS thanks ARISS, and Charlie, AJ9N for the above information]
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Satellite Shorts From All Over
* LightSail Drama Continues as Spacecraft Wakes for Second Time
LightSail is back in business, following the second extended outage of the
test spacecraft’s mission. The CubeSat checked in at 2:21 p.m. EDT
(18:21 UTC)
Saturday for the first time since Wednesday afternoon. Over the course
of two
overflights, 23 beacon telemetry packets were received by the
spacecraft's Cal
Poly San Luis Obispo ground station.
A rapid sail deployment was briefly considered, but with battery levels
still
unsteady and just one ground pass remaining before an eight-and-a-half hour
outage, the team scrapped the idea. When LightSail came around the Earth
again,
telemetry showed its batteries were charging—the first time since solar
panel
deployment three days ago.
If battery levels continue to trend stably during Sunday’s early morning
ground station passes, sail deployment will be scheduled for 2:02 p.m. EDT
(18:02 UTC).
Engineers have been working to narrow down the reason LightSail’s batteries
tripped into a safe mode-like condition following solar panel deployment.
Before this afternoon's signal acquisition, the leading theory was that the
spacecraft was stuck in a loop where power levels were too low in Earth's
shadow, but too high in sunlight. This power ping-pong could have
prevented the
batteries from reattaching their circuits to the spacecraft and allowing
normal
operations to resume. The analysis is still ongoing.
{ANS thanks the Planetary Society's Jason Davis for the above information]
* Goddard Technologist Advances CubeSat Concept for Planetary Exploration
Although scientists are increasingly using pint-size satellites
sometimes no
larger than a loaf of bread to gather data from low-Earth orbit, they
have yet
to apply the less-expensive small-satellite technology to observe physical
phenomena far from terra firma.
Jaime Esper, a technologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Maryland, however, is advancing a CubeSat concept that would give
scientists that capability.
Dubbed the CubeSat Application for Planetary Entry Missions (CAPE), the
concept involves the development of two modules: a service module that would
propel the spacecraft to its celestial target and a separate planetary entry
probe that could survive a rapid dive through the atmosphere of an
extraterrestrial planet, all while reliably transmitting scientific and
engineering data.
Esper and his team are planning to test the stability of a prototype entry
vehicle -the Micro-Reentry Capsule (MIRCA) - this summer during a
high-altitude
balloon mission from Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
'Like No Other CubeSat Mission'
"The CAPE/MIRCA concept is like no other CubeSat mission," Esper said. "It
goes the extra step in delivering a complete spacecraft for carrying out
scientific investigations. We are the only researchers working on a concept
like this."
Under his concept, the CAPE/MIRCA spacecraft, including the service
module and
entry probe, would weigh less than 11 pounds (4.9 kilograms) and measure no
more than 4 inches (10.1 centimeters) on a side. After being ejected from a
canister housed by its mother ship, the tiny spacecraft would unfurl its
miniaturized solar panels or operate on internal battery power to begin its
journey to another planetary body.
Once it reached its destination, the sensor-loaded entry vehicle would
separate from its service module and begin its descent through the target's
atmosphere. It would communicate atmospheric pressure, temperature, and
composition data to the mother ship, which then would transmit the
information
back to Earth.
The beauty of CubeSats is their versatility. Because they are relatively
inexpensive to build and deploy, scientists could conceivably launch
multiple
spacecraft for multi-point sampling - a capability currently not
available with
single planetary probes that are the NASA norm today.
Esper would equip the MIRCA craft with accelerometers, gyros, thermal and
pressure sensors, and radiometers, which measure specific gases; however,
scientists could tailor the instrument package depending on the targets,
Esper
said.
A Balloon Flight is designed to test stability.
The first step in realizing the concept is demonstrating a prototype of the
MIRCA design during a balloon mission this summer. According to the
plan, the
capsule, manufactured at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's
Eastern
Shore, would be dropped from the balloon gondola at an altitude of about
18.6
miles (30 kilometers) to test the design's aerodynamic stability and
operational concept. During its free fall, MIRCA is expected to reach
speeds of
up to Mach 1, roughly the speed of sound.
"If I can demonstrate the entry vehicle, I then could attract potential
partners to provide the rest of the vehicle," Esper said, referring to the
service module, including propulsion and attitude-control subsystems. He
added
that the concept might be particularly attractive to universities and
researchers with limited resources.
In addition to the balloon flight, Esper said he would like to drop the
entry
vehicle from the International Space Station perhaps as early as 2016 -
a test
that would expose the capsule to spaceflight and reentry heating
conditions and
further advance its technology-readiness level.
"The balloon drop of MIRCA will in itself mark the first time a CubeSat
planetary entry capsule is flight tested, not only at Goddard, but anywhere
else in the world," he said. "That in turn enables new opportunities in
planetary exploration not available to date, and represents a game-changing
opportunity for Goddard."
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Th..._Technologist_
Advances_CubeSat_Concept_for_Planetary_Exploration _999.html
[ANS thanks NASA Goddard, and Spacedaily.com for the above information]
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/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,
Joe Spier, K6WAO
k6wao at amsat dot org
_______________________________________________
Via the ANS mailing list courtesy of AMSAT-NA
http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/ans