Space Symposium Auction Announced

Greetings Amateur Radio in Space Enthusiasts!

2014 AMSAT Symposium
2014 AMSAT Symposium

At this year’s AMSAT Space Symposium, we are trying a few new things and we hope you will enjoy them.  One exciting facet we are adding this year is an auction.  All proceeds from the auction will support AMSAT’s two major initiatives—the development and launch of the FOX satellite series and the ARISS program.

As we prepare for the auction, we are asking for your help in donating specialty items for auction (minimum value $100) that will attract symposium attendee’s attention and get them bidding up the item price.  If you have any items that are ham related (no boat anchors please), items of historical value, space related and/or autographed items, or even sports tickets or time shares, we would love to get your donations.  Think out of the box on this—what exciting things would you like to see in this auction?

If you have something to donate to the Symposium auction, please send an e-mail to Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, who will work with you on getting your item or items into the auction.   Frank’s e-mail address is ka3hdo at verizon.net

This auction, while adding a fun experience to the AMSAT Space Symposium experience, will also serve to keep amateur radio’s spirit thriving in space through its donations to FOX and ARISS.

On behalf of AMSAT, I thank you for your donations in advance.  And I encourage each of you to attend and participate in this year’s AMSAT Space Symposium to be held in Baltimore Maryland Oct 10-12.  For more information, see:

http://www.amsat.org/wordpress/?page_id=1555

73 from Your Symposium Committee Co-Chairs:

Frank Bauer, KA3HDO and Janet Bauer

VO-52 “Hamsat” end of mission

From an email to AMSAT-bb email list today:

Dear Friends,

With heavy heart, I sadly convey, that our little angel ‘HAMSAT VO-52’ would no more be able to offer her services to the ‘Amateur Radio Fraternity. HAMSAT VO-52 succumbed in Space on 11th July 2014, while she was on her 49,675th orbit, due to the failure of on-board lithium ion batteries that have met their end of life.

Although her desires were to be at work with other systems and sub-systems working normal as per the latest telemetry received, the on-board computer recurring to ‘Reset’ mode due to the failure of batteries is preventing her to do so.  Hence, it is decided not to expect any more meaningful and reliable services from HAMSAT VO-52.

Since 11th July, every best possible effort has been put in by the spacecraft controllers here in ISTRAC Bangalore to revive her back to life and to help her with work load, so she won’t be swamped when she returns, but with no luck.  Though it is hard, the HAMSAT VO-52 designers and controllers insist that the time has come to let the little angel free in space to go drifting on her own from their care and custody.

Thus, today 21st July 2014, ISRO have decommissioned ‘HAMSAT-VO52’

We all here in ISRO do definitely hope that ‘HAMSAT VO-52’ worked tirelessly and was a good friend to the ‘Amateur Radio Fraternity’

around the World. We are sure that HAMSAT was loved by all who worked through her. Though, we are deeply saddened by the loss of HAMSAT VO-52, but she will never be forgotten and far from our hearts, minds and memories.

HAMSAT VO-52 will always be remembered by all of us here in ISRO as one of the greatest satellites of ours.

Dear ‘HAMSAT’, looking at the sky, we all say ‘Good Bye’ to you.

You’ll be greatly missed. Rest in Peace.

Nevertheless, at this point of time, on behalf of the World Amateur Radio Fraternity, we thank each and everyone who contributed to the great success of ‘HAMSAT’.

Particularly, our sincere thanks to the Chairman ISRO, Dr. K.

Radhakrishnan, past chairmen Dr. Kasthurirangan, Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, Director-ISAC Dr. S.K.Shiva Kumar, past ISAC Directors Dr. P.S. Goel, Dr.

Shankara, Dr. T.K. Alex, Director-ISTRAC Shri. B.S. Chandrasekhar, scientific secretary Dr. Koteshwar Rao, Project Director-Shri. J.P. Gupta, Deputy project Directors, Mission Director-Shri. R.Suresh, Operations Director-Shri. Parimalarangan and each and every person directly or in-directly contributed.

At this point of time, we also thank AMSAT-India and in particular, late Shri. Nagesh Upadhyaya-VU2NUD,  Shri. B.S. Gajendra Kumar-VU2BGS, Shri.

Prathap Kumar-VU2POP, Air Commodore. Subramanian-VU2UV, Shri.  V.P.

Sandlas-VU2VP, Dr.R. Ramesh-VU2RMS, Shri. Nitin-VU3TYG, Mr. Williams Leijenaar PE1RAH and each and every member.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Pasted below is the message from Mr. R. Suresh, Mission Director:

HAMSAT, the first small satellite by ISRO has been Decommissioned after nearly a decade of service to the World Ham community.

A true masterpiece among small satellites, designed for one year mission life, but exceeded all expectations by serving for almost 10 years. A truly autonomous satellite, with “Zero maintenance“ in terms of Mission operations, it provided a springboard to test many new concepts such as BMU. LI-ion based power system, automatic Spin rate control and Auto SAOC for maintaining the Satellite attitude without any ground commanding.

HAMSAT known as “OSCAR-52” among the Amateur HAM operators has been very popular because of its high sensitivity receiver and strong transmitter. Indian Radio Amateurs on many occasions conveyed to us that they have been greatly honored to share the adulations showered on ISRO and INDIA by the International Radio Amateur for gifting this wonderful satellite “HAMSAT”.

I take this opportunity to applaud the HAMSAT teams at ISAC, ISTRAC and other centre for their efforts and  support, which has made ISRO proud among the HAM users across the globe.

R,SURESH

MISSION DIRECTOR

HAMSAT

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Mani [VU2WMY/KJ6LRS]

Secretary & Station-In-Charge

Upagrah Amateur Radio Club VU2URC

ISRO Satellite Centre

HAL Airport Road, Bangalore-560 017.

VO-52 "Hamsat"
VO-52 “Hamsat”

CubeSats QB50p1 and QB50p2 Awarded OSCAR Numbers

AMSAT-NA OSCAR number coordinator Bill Tynan, W3XO has announced that:

“I have received your request for OSCAR Numbers for CubeSats QB50p1 and QB50p2 and from everything I can determine these spacecraft meet all of the requirements necessary to receive OSCAR numbers. Therefore, by the authority vested in me by the AMSAT-NA President, I hereby confer the designation European OSCAR 79 to CubeSats QB50p1 and European OSCAR 80 to CubeSat CubeSats QB50p2. These designations can, of course, for convenience be shortened to EO-79 and EO-80. I, and the entire amateur satellite community, hope for successful missions for both EO-79 and EO-80 and congratulate AMSAT-NL and the ISIS team as well as  all who contributed to these new Amateur Radio satellites for their success in building, testing and launching these new OSCARs.”

On behalf of the AMSAT-NL Qb50p team, Wouter Weggelaar, PA3WEG replied:

“Thank you very much for awarding these OSCAR numbers. They underwrite the collaborative nature of the mission, the help of radio amateurs, and the importance of amateur radio to the CubeSat community. I am very proud to receive these numbers.  We anticipate the transponders to be activated about six months into the mission, and will update the AMSAT-BB on the activation and well being of the satellites.”

QB50 Precursor Mission Page: http://www.isispace.nl/HAM/qb50p.html

EO-79 and EO-80 (Thanks to ISIS for the photo)
EO-79 and EO-80 (Thanks to ISIS for the photo)

Dnepr Launch with 37 satellites on June 19th

jun19dnepr
Dnepr Space Head Module, courtesy of ISIS Launch Services

ISC Kosmotras has launched another Dnepr from the Yasny facility in Russia. This launch carried an astounding 37 individual satellites to orbit, eclipsing the record set just last November by the previous Dnepr launch (including AMSAT-UK’s FunCube-1 aka AO-73). The Dnepr is a converted R-36M ICBM, now retasked to launch satellites instead of nuclear warheads. Launch was Thursday, June 19th, 2014 at 19:11:11 UTC.

While a complete listing of the satellites onboard can be found at http://www.zarya.info/Calendar.php and http://www.spaceflight101.com/dnepr-launch-updates—2014-cluster-launch.html , we have compiled a list of the amateur and amateur related payloads below:

Satellite (Click Link) Downlink Mode Uplink Mode
ANTELSat 437.575 1k2 FSK/AFSK, SSTV 145.86
437.280 CW 145.xx
2403.000 500k GFSK/MSK
DTUSat-2 2401.835 1k2-38k4 MSK data 1268.9 9k6 CPFSK
 DUCHIFAT-1 145.980 1k2 BPSK or DSB voice 435.XXX
NanosatC-Br1 145.865 435.XXX
PACE 437.485 1k2 AFSK/CW
PolyITAN 437.675 1k2 AFSK/CW
POPSAT-HIP1 437.405 1k2-9k6 CCSDS
QB50p1 (FUNCube-3) 145.935-.965 transponder 435.035-.065 transponder
145.815 1k2 BPSK/CW
QB50p2 145.880 1k2 BPSK/CW
145.840 9k6 FSK
UniSat-6 437.425 9k6 GMSK 437.425 9k6 GMSK
BugSat-1 437.445 9k6 GMSK
Aurora-Tabletsat 435.550
436.100
437.050 D-STAR Parrot Repeater

The Unisat-6 team has published preliminary keps that should provide approximate tracking for the first few days at most. Be advised to listened before and after the pass times these keps predict.

UNISAT-6
1 00000U 00000    14169.02083330  .00000831  00000-0  10000-3 0 00009
2 00000 097.9760 063.7300 0060000 225.6000 206.7270 14.69750000000017