At 19:55 EDT on Tuesday May 19 three CubeSats carrying Amateur Radio payloads were successdully launched from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The CubeSats are:
PHARMASAT-1 - Santa Clara University on 437.465 MHz AX.25 1200 bps
HAWKSAT-I - Hawk Institute for Space Sciences on 437.345 MHz
POLYSAT CP6 - California Polytechnic State University on 437.365 MHz1200bps AX.25
Initial reports on the web indicate that signals have been received from Pharmasat-1 and Polysat CP6.
A 'High Quality' video of the launch titled 'Minotaur 1 (TacSat 3)' can be seen below (click on player's HQ icon)
PharmaSat launch and beacon alert http://www.southgatearc.org/news/may2009/pharmasat_launch.htm
Calpoly CubeSat Page http://cubesat.calpoly.edu/
AMSAT Bulletin Board AMSAT-BB http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/maillist/
2 comments:
Has anyone picked up a signal from HawkSat yet? From what I understand it should be a 200 to 400 ms pulse every 20 seconds.
Okay as far a I know the Hawksat-1 radio checks for a
compatible ground station signal every 20
seconds. Upon detecting such a signal it
immediately establishes a communications
link and begins to transmit an identification
message followed by the mission data but your correct in saying it should be a 200 to 400 ms pulse.
This experiment contains an external payload
board which exposes newly developed
materials to the radiation and temperatures
encountered in the space environment. An
internal payload board gathers the data and
relays it to the flight computer every 20
minutes. The flight computer records and
saves the data ultimately formatting it for
subsequent transmission to the ground
stations.
From what I reconigsed HawkSat-1 automatically returns to data
sampling mode once the communications
link is terminated upon moving out of range of the ground station.
As for receiving a singal from the satellite but I do know the co-ordinated downlink frequency is 437.345 MHz. unfortunately I am not set up for it yet but when I do ill give a further update.
Thanks for your comment,
73's
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