SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-303.01 SSETI Express Launched 30 September 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 303.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. October 30, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-303.01 The SSETI Express satellite launched at 06:52 UTC on Thursday, 27 October 2005 on board a Kosmos 3M launcher. One hundred and three minutes later, exactly on schedule, the first signals were heard form the groundstation in Aalborg, and two-way communication was established. In addition to several successful communication sessions with SSETI Express, two of the Cubesat passengers, UWE-1 and Xi-V, have been heard by their groundstations. An official release from ESA stated, "22:20 CEST SSETI Express went into a safe mode due to an undervoltage caused by battery charging problems. The operations team is working actively to resume nominal operations of the satellite and is receiving tremendous help in the process from the amateur radio community. At the time of the anomaly many mission milestones had already successfully been met." Graham, UA/G3VZV reports, "that it seems that no reliable reports of any signals have been received and the teams are reviewing all the telemetry already received to fully understand what is happening on board.Initial review suggests that there is a significant chance that the power supply problem may correct itself." Graham also advises that the command station in Aalborg is planning to try to try a blind command of the satellite into S band on mode - maybe on a Sunday am pass at 10:30 UTC. As the statement above makes clear, ESA and the SSETI Association greatly value the input that amateur operators are providing and would ask amateurs around the world to continue to check for signals on 437.250MHz at the appropriate pass times. These signals may be short bursts of 9k6 data every 18 secs or bursts of pulse telemetry every 30 secs. Please understand that the pulse beacon decoder can produce spurious results on plain noise if over driven! Anyone hearing anything that matches the above detail is requested to please email details to missioncontrol@sseti.org The type of the first transmissions will depend on the state of the battery. In Nominal mode - a sub 1 second burst of AX25 9k6 FSK telemetry every 18 seconds on the downlink frequency of 437.250 MHz. In Recovery or Safe mode - simple on/off telemetry comprising 16 x 100 msec carrier pulses. This telemetry is repeated every 30 seconds in Safe Mode and every 2 minutes when in Recovery Mode. The satellite will transmit at a power of 3 watts. A daily report of the launch campaign is being maintained at http://sseti.gte.tuwien.ac.at/express/mop/index.php?uri=news.html This mission operations site is completely up-to-date regarding Kepler TLEs and other LEOP "Launch and Early Operations Phase" details. The SERACC software, needed to decode and submit the received data to the SSETI database, together with some audio files containing recorded 9k6 signals to experiment with is also now available The ESA website about SSETI Express is at: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/sseti_express/SEMARJ7X9DE_0.html The latest version of the SSETI Express handbook can be downloaded free of charge from the AMSAT-UK website at: http://www.uk.amsat.org/ [ANS thanks Graham, UA/G3VZV and Trevor, M5AKA for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-303.02 Urgent Reguest for UWE-1 Data AMSAT News Service Bulletin 303.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. October 30, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-303.02 Radu, with the UWE-1 Team in Wuerzburg, Germany reports that they have a very serious situation and need immeadiate assistance copying UWE-1 telemetry data. Due to the extremely unfavorable weather conditions in Wuerzburg (heavy clouds and very thick fog, with visibility sometimes less than 10 m), we were not able to decode much of the sensor data from UWE-1 during the last two passes over our ground station. We have already prepared a list with new equipment we need for the GS, but it might take a while to get it, as 0 1 November 2005 is a national bank holiday in Germany. The command station is able to send commands to the satellite and can receive the answers, but the signals received were S2-S3 level on the S-meter. The last reliable data is already 30 hours old. They urgently need some beacon data in order to characterize the status of the subsystems and decide how to continue the mission. UWE-1 is sending one beacon every 60[sec] on 437.505+- MHz, 1200baud AFSK. One beacon is 33 bytes long. The UWE-1 team would be very happy to receive also raw (.hex) data, we can decode them here. Please send the data to: cubesat@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de. Thank you very much! Please forward this email to everyone able to help us with some new data. Thank you very much for your support! [ANS thanks Radu for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-303.03 New Eagle Project Information AMSAT News Service Bulletin 303.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. October 30, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-303.03 New and updated information about the Eagle HEO satellite project is now available at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/eagle/ The new information is about the IHU-3 (Internal Housekeeping Unit - Version 3) which is the brains behind Eagle and is an open source, open design component. The IHU-3 link contains the source code archives and documentation for projects and developers incorporating the IHU-3 into their system designs. There is also a link to the Can-Do website operated by Steve Moraco, KC0FTQ which contains reference documents, firmware updates, programming libraries, schedules and milestones for all aspects of the Can-Do bus, modules, widgets and other components. The Can-Do is the interconnection bus that connects all Eagle modeules to the IHU. [ANS thanks Lee KU4OS for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-303.04 OSCAR 11 Report - 25 October 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 303.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. October 30, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-303.04 During the period 24 September to 25 October 2005 the VHF beacon on 145.826MHz resumed transmissions, as expected, on 30 September, sometime between 06:05 and 06:42 UTC passes. Reasonable signals were also captured on the 17:44 pass, later that day. However by the 16:49 UTC pass on 02 October, the beacon had switched OFF. Transmissions resumed on 21 October, and should continue until around 31 October. The on-board clock continues to show a very large error. Currently it is 19.2394 days slow, having lost six hours while the beacon was last OFF, ie. between 02 October and 21 October. When the beacon is ON, the clock is stable to within a few seconds. All the analogue telemetry channels, 0 to 59 are zero, ie they have failed. The status channels 60 to 67 are still working. The eclipses have now ended, and the satellite should be in continuous sunlight for the remainder of this year, and well into next year. This should help the satellite to continue transmitting, although continuous sunlight can cause problems due to excessive temperatures. The watchdog timer appears to be operating on the 20 day cycle, ie. approximately ten days ON followed by 10 days OFF. It appears to be uneffected by problems of the on-board clock. However, poor solar attitude, and battery problems, may be combining to produce a low line voltage. This causes the beacon to switch OFF premeaturely, and resets the watchdog timer cycle. The Beacon frequencies are - VHF 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry UHF 435.025 MHz. OFF S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF Listeners to OSCAR-11 may be interested in visiting my website which contains an archive of news & telemetry data. It also contains details about using a soundcard or hardware demodulators for data capture. There is software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry. The URL is www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/ If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network, please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT114.CWV, to prevent duplication. [ANS thanks Clive G3CWV for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-303.05 AMSAT Awards AMSAT News Service Bulletin 303.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. October 30, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-303.05 This week, congratulations go out to all of the following. Allen Kenny, KK4EMK, Satellite Communicators Club Robert Tucker, WA6MBL, Satellite Communicators Club Allen Kenny, KK4EMK, Satellite Communication Achievement Award #423 Marc Sanchez, KD5MSS, Satellite Communication Achievement Award #424 Allen Kenny, KK4EMK, 51 on 51 Award #38 Marc Sanchez, KD5MSS, South Africa Communication Achievement Award To see all the awards visit http://www.amsat.org or http://www.amsatnet.com [ANS thanks Bruce KK5DO, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-303.06 ARISS Status - 24 October 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 303.06 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. October 30, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-303.06 1. Upcoming School Contacts Kawachi Citizen's Committee for Youth in Miyoshi, Hiroshima, Japan has been approved for a contact on Thursday, 03 November 2005 at 0744 UTC. 2. ARRL Article on JOTA 2005 Over the weekend of 15-16 October, astronaut Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, participated in the 2005 Jamboree on the Air (JOTA). Since then, Bill has been active on voice, and has continued to thrill hams worldwide. ARRL covered the JOTA event in a web story entitled, "ISS Astronaut Gets in the JOTA Spirit." See: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/10/21/4/?nc=1 3. Astronaut Training Astronauts Nicole Stott and Garrett Reisman attended their first amateur radio license training session on 18 October. They were scheduled for their second session on Wednesday, 26 October 26. On 17 October 17, Bob Behnken took and passed his amateur radio exam. He received his callsign, KE5GGX, and is currently in the selection pool for future ISS expedition crews. Congratulations Bob! 4.Expedition 11 Crew Debrief The U.S. debrief session with Expedition 11 crew member John Phillips, KE5DRY, is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, 08 November at 2100 UTC. 5. WebTech.com Article on ARISS ARISS delegate Rosalie White sat for an interview with Web-Tech.com to discuss the ARISS program. The online story is available on their website. See: http://www.personaltechpipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171204199 6. School Selection Committee Meeting Held Rosalie White held a School Selection Committee teleconference on 13 October 2005. Discussions included the NEEIS database, which will reopen in mid-October for teachers to finish entering their evaluations, and the possibility of Bill McArthur participating in two ARISS contacts per week, which could reduce the backlog of U.S. schools waiting for a contact. Meeting minutes will be posted on the ARISS website in the near future. The next committee meeting is scheduled for 08 December 2005. 7. Space.com Article on Olsen Space.com wrote an article covering Greg Olsen's flight to the ISS. The story mentions his ARISS contacts with school children and the importance of sharing his flight with others to excite their imaginations. See: http://space.com/missionlaunches/051017_olsen_us.html 8. ARISS - Eindhoven Contact Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, PI9ISS, flew to the ISS with Expedition 9 crew members in conjunction with the Dutch Expedition for Life science, Technology and Atmospheric research (DELTA) Mission. On April 25, 2004, Kuipers participated in an ARISS contact with students from three schools: Saltoschool Hanevoet (primary school), Sint Joriscollege (secondary school) and Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (university). The students who were selected for the contact gathered in the radio room of the Amateur Radio Club of the Technical University of Eindhoven (PI4TUE), the Netherlands. The contact was a success. A short article on the contact has recently been made available to the ARISS team, complete with photos and links to audio and video. See: http://home.vianetworks.nl/users/hamoen/pa3guo/ariss_contact.html [ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI for the above information] /EX