[amsat-bb] SSETI Express update

["Graham Shirville" <g.shirville@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A quick report on the current progress and plans regarding SSETI Express -
the first satellite to built under the auspices of the ESA Education Office
for the Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative.

The Flight Model of the AMSAT-UK S band transmitter module has been
completed and installed into the special enclosure which has been provided
by the Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland. The satellite will use
three S band RHCP patch antennas . These antennas are fed through a splitter
unit which provides 50% or the power to the nadir facing antenna and 25% of
the power to each of the other antennas which are being fixed to the side of
the spacecraft. These antennas and the splitter have also been provided by
the University.

Tests performed on the flight model transmitter indicate that the total
power output in 2401.840MHz should be just over the intended 3 watts.

Next week (Nov 8th) the team will be taking the transmitter to the ESA ESTEC
facility in the Netherlands. The unit will be tested to work with the
on-board computer, the 28v DC power supply system and also the 70cms
transceiver which is being provided by Holger DF2FQ. They are looking
forward to this work being completed by midweek and being able to formally
"handover" the unit to the ESA SSETI team at that time.

Future project plans for the SSETI Express project call for final
integration of the complete spacecraft to be completed at a full SSETI team
workshop being held at the end of November and for it then to proceed to
"thermal, shake & vac" tests during December and January prior to delivery
to the Plesetsk launch site for a May 2005 launch.

The AMSAT - UK S-band transmitter will be used to downlink 38k4 telemetry
and image data during the early part of the mission. When this part of the
project has been completed it is intended that it will be switched to
provided a single channel U/S FM transponder. The transmitter also has its
own simple, in-built, telemetry system to provide health check data and
suitable decoding software is under development and will be released before
launch.

ESA is also very keen for radio amateurs worldwide to be involved in the
collection of all the AX25 mission telemetry data both at 38k4 on 2.4GHz and
at 9k6 on 437MHz. Obviously a worldwide network of ground stations is
something that is usually only available with a large investment. Nearer the
time of launch further information will be made available concerning this
important part of the project. ESA will be awarding a prize for the amateur
who successfully provides the largest amount of this data to them.

The project team consists of Sam G4DDK, David G0MRF, Jason G7OCD, Howard
G6LVB and Graham G3VZV. The transmitter uses the PA which has been provided
FOC by Charlie, G3WDG.

More updated information and a full article on this project will be
published in the next edition of Oscar News - available to all members of
AMSAT-UK. Visit http://www.uk.amsat.org/ for details of how to join!

For more details of the SSETI Express project visit
http://sseti.gte.tuwien.ac.at/WSW4/ and click on "missions" then "express".
This site includes more than 120 photos of the integration process, detailed
drawings, progress reports and a live webcam.
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