AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-313
The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and information 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://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 dot org.
In this edition:
- Neutron-1 Launched from the ISS
- VUCC Awards-Endorsements for November 2020
- AMSAT GridMaster Award
- IARU Coordinates Frequencies for Six Satellites in October
- ARISS Team Attends ISS National Lab Education Summit
- Upcoming Satellite Operations
- Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
- ARISS News
- Satellite Shorts from All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-313.01
ANS-313 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 313.01
From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
November 08, 2020
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-313.01
Neutron-1 Launched from the ISS
Hawaii’s first 3U CubeSat designed to detect neutrons was launched on November 5, 2020 by the ISS and is now in Low Earth Orbit.
The science payload, a small neutron detector developed by Arizona State University, will focus on measurements of low-energy secondary neutrons – a component of the LEO neutron environment.
For the first month and during the spacecraft commissioning phase, the beacon will transmit 1200bps BPSK every 60 seconds on the IARU coordinated frequency of 435.300MHz . The Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory welcomes the worldwide Amateur Radio community to collect the beacons and forward them to [email protected]. The beacon format is now public and published at: https://tinyurl.com/ANS-313-Ne
After the initial commissioning phase, Amateurs will be able to use the V/U FM repeater during available times and according to the available power budget. Stay tuned for more mission updates on their Twitter account @HSFLNeutron1 and their website: https://www.hsfl.hawaii.edu/mi
[ANS thanks the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory for the above information.]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMSAT office
is closed until further notice. For details, please visit
https://www.amsat.org/amsat-of
VUCC Awards-Endorsements for November 2020
Here are the endorsements and new VUCC Satellite Awards issued by the ARRL for the period October 1, 2020 through November 1, 2020. Congratulations to all those who made the list this month!
| Call | Oct | Nov |
|---|---|---|
| KO4MA | 1753 | 1779 |
| N3GS | 652 | 679 |
| N0JE | 655 | 675 |
| KE4AL | 625 | 631 |
| K7TAB | 600 | 627 |
| WD9EWK(DM43) | 623 | 625 |
| KI7UNJ | 551 | 576 |
| N9FN | 450 | 486 |
| K0JM | 300 | 403 |
| N5BO | New | 401 |
| N4DCW | 300 | 400 |
| WA9JBQ | 355 | 375 |
| VE6WK | 207 | 355 |
| AK7DD | 255 | 326 |
| KS1G | 285 | 325 |
| KF6JOQ | 251 | 303 |
| W4DTA | 275 | 301 |
| N6RFM | 226 | 276 |
| W2ZF | 101 | 276 |
| K8BL | 257 | 274 |
| N7AGF | 200 | 240 |
| N3CAL | 171 | 181 |
| W7YED | 127 | 163 |
| DL6IAN | New | 154 |
| K3HPA | 128 | 150 |
| EA2AA | 125 | 148 |
| NA1ME | 100 | 126 |
| WD9EWK(DM42) | 100 | 126 |
| WY4X | New | 108 |
| N7UJJ | New | 101 |
| F4BKV | New | 100 |
| W4WT | New | 100 |
If you find errors or omissions. please contact Ron off-list at <mycall>@<mycall>.com and he will revise the announcement. This list was developed by comparing the ARRL .pdf listings for the two months. It’s a visual comparison so omissions are possible. Apologies if your call was not mentioned. Thanks to all those who are roving to grids that are rarely on the birds. They are doing most of the work!
[ANS thanks Ron Parsons, W5RKN for the above information.]
AMSAT GridMaster Award
With last week’s activation of DL88, there are 4 new recipients of the GridMaster award. They all sent in their applications within days of each other.
#16 Chris AA8CH
#17 Robert KE4AL
#18 George N3GS
#19 Kerry WC7V
Awesome job and thanks to K5Z for activating the grid!
[ANS thanks Bruce Paige, KK5DO for the above information.]
Need new satellite antennas? Purchase Arrows, Alaskan Arrows,
and M2 LEO-Packs from the AMSAT Store. When you purchase through
AMSAT, a portion of the proceeds goes towards
Keeping Amateur Radio in Space.
https://amsat.org/product-cat
IARU Coordinates Frequencies for Six Satellites in October
During the month of October the IARU coordinated frequencies for six upcoming Amateur Radio satellites:
- OreSat0 (Portland State Aerospace Society at Portland State University is a 1U CubeSat. The mission is to provide flight heritage to the “OreSat bus”, an open source card-cage based system that is ideally suited for education CubeSat projects involving interdisciplinary teams of students. Downlinks on UHF using CW beacon, 9k6 G3RUH AX25/APRS packet beacon and a 96k GMSK engineering downlink. Also downlink on S Band using amateur 802.11b DPSK with 11M chip/sec spread and 1 Mbps data rate for bulk mission data. Downlinks on 436.500 MHz and 2425.00 MHz have been coordinated. Planning a launch with Momentus Space from Cape Canaveral in February 2021 into a 450 km polar orbit. More info at: http://oresat.org/ and https://github.com/oresat.
- TartanArtibeus-1 (Carnegie Mellon University) is a 1P PocketQube. The Amateur Radio community globally will be provided with a delay ping-back service, allowing Amateurs to send messages, with replies from the satellite transmitted later. A UHF downlink using 3kbps FSK compatible with RadioHead library. A downlink on 437.170 MHz has been coordinated. Planning a SpaceX launch from KSC in December 2020 into a 550km SSO.
- SATLLA-2 (Ariel University) is a 2P picosat that will take low-resolution photos and will broadcast the photos over the Amateur Radio with its position in orbit and data from its sensors. UHF and S Band downlinks using LORA from 476bps to 9k6 bps. Downlinks on 437.250 MHz and 2401.000 MHz have been coordinated. Planning a SpaceX launch into a 410 km 52 degree orbit in December 2020.
- CSIROSat-1 (University of South Australia & CSIRO) is a 3U CubeSat mission that will perform hyperspectral infrared imaging of the earth for scientific research purposes. An experimental two-way link for Amateur Radio operators to exchange short messages through a ‘ping-pong’ arrangement of data exchange is among the several communications experiments. Proposing a 9k6 FSK downlink. A downlink on 437.315 MHz has been coordinated. Planning a launch from Cape Canaveral in March 2021 into an ISS orbit.
- PyCubed-1 (Carnegie Mellon University) is a 1P PocketQube that will test a novel 3-axis attitude control system based on magnetic torque coils. In addition, it will test new low- power LoRa radios in low-Earth orbit which will be of interest to many other Amateur Radio small satellite operators. Proposing a 3kbps UHF downlink. A downlink on 437.290 MHz has been coordinated. Packets are standard LoRa format and are compatible with the RadioHead library. Planning a SpaceX launch from KSC into a 550 km SSO in December 2020.
- Grizu-263A (Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University) is a pocketcube satellite with a digipeater mode that will allow forwarding of received messages back to earth to support communication between Amateur Radio operators. Proposing a UHF downlink using 4k8 FSK. A downlink on 437.190 MHz has been coordinated. Planning a SpaceX launch from Vandenberg into a 500 600 km SSO in December 2020.
Information on these and other upcoming satellites can be found at:
http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/.
[ANS thanks the IARU for the above information.]
Want to fly the colors on your own grid expedition?
Get your AMSAT car flag and other neat stuff
from our Zazzle store!
25% of the purchase price of each product goes
towards Keeping Amateur Radio in Space
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ARISS Team Attends ISS National Lab Education Summit
A group of ARISS team members took part in the three-day ISS National Lab Education Summit on October 26-28, 2020. On Day 1, Space Station Explorers Senior Education Manager Dan Barstow gave a presentation titled “20 Years of STEM Education—the ISS National Lab Report. His talk highlighted several of the Space Station Explorers programs, and one was ARISS. Barstow related a small amount of ARISS’s long history, described how it enhances youth education, and displayed some of ARISS’s metrics on engaging youth.
Frank Bauer shared additional comments on ARISS activities and plans such as this past summer’s balloon race using amateur radio payloads and how ARISS transformed its school contacts in ways that safeguarded students from Covid.
Rosalie White added that ARISS is not just K-12; colleges and universities often host ARISS contacts with the students mentoring elementary schools. She thanked Barstow for describing ARISS as “having the power to combine ham radio and space exploration into a magical elixir to engage students.”
Day 3 sessions focused on upcoming activities allowing students to engage with the ISS. At another session, Barstow introduced the Student Mission Control project, an initiative where students can receive live ISS telemetry data in a mission control setting, and then analyze and interpret the data. Barstow described the ARISS contribution to this initiative, where on-board telemetry data
acquired by sensors attached to an ARISS-developed Raspberry Pi computer can be transmitted from the ARISS on-board radio system and directly received on the ground and evaluated by the Mission Control students.
[ANS thanks ARISS for the above information.]
Upcoming Satellite Operations
CN73,CN74,CN82,CN83, November 6-8, 2020
@KF6JOQ will be operating holiday style on FM. He will tweet as soon as he knows were and when. His main goal is CN73/83 and to run doubles. “Hope I can help a few.”
KH67, November 11-21, 2020
7Q7RU on AO-7, RS-44 and QO-100. More information at:https://dxpedition.wixsite.com
HH02, November 13-15, 2020
Sandro Ribeiro, PY1SAN and Claudio Marcelo, PY1CMT are QRV on QO-100 with some opportunities AO-07, FO-29 or RS-44 using CW and SSB as ZX6BA from Prado, Brazil, Bahia. The activity will be on several HF bands too, using CW and FT8 on an Alex Loop Antenna with 5 watts. QSL via LoTW.
FN53/54/55/56/57/64/65/66/67 November 13-18, 2020
@KL7TN will be in Maine. Details to follow.
GG99, November 16-18, 2020.
Sandro Ribeiro, PY1SAN and Claudio Marcelo, PY1CMT are QRV on QO-100 and maybe AO-07, FO-29, RS-44 using CW and SSB as PR1S from Nova Almeida, Brazil, Espirito Santo. Activity will be on several HF bands too, using CW and FT8 on an Alex Loop Antenna with 5 watts. QSL via LoTW.
[ANS thanks Paul Overn, KE0PBR for the above information.]
Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
November 11, 2020
Rick Tejera K7TEJ from the Thunderbird Amateur Radio Club (TBARC) will be giving a presentation and demonstration of satellite operations to the Northwest Christian School in Glendale, AZ. The demo will be on SO-50 at 2323UTC. He will be using the club call WB7TBC and the church is in Grid DM33wp. He may try to get a student on the air. Please keep an ear out for Rick and respond to his call as the kids will appreciate it. Rick will send a reminder as the date gets closer.
[ANS thanks Paul Overn, KE0PBR for the above information.]
AMSAT, along with our ARISS partners, is developing an amateur
radio package, including two-way communication capability, to
be carried on-board Gateway in lunar orbit.
Support AMSAT’s projects today at https://www.amsat.org/donate/
ARISS News
No ARISS contacts are currently scheduled.
November 12: ARISS educator Kathy Lamont is scheduled to give a talk at the online Virginia Association of Science Teachers Conference. Her presentation is titled “How to Talk with an Astronaut 250 Miles Above You.”
The latest information on the operation mode can be found at https://www.ariss.org/current-
The latest list of frequencies in use can be found at https://www.ariss.org/contact-
The deadline for United States organizations to submit an ARISS contact proposal is November 24, 2020. For more information, visit http://www.ariss.org/.
[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N for the above information.]
Shorts from All Over
EIRSAT-1 Video Available Online
The EIRSAT-1 CubeSat, built by students at University College Dublin is due for launch on the Vega rocket in early 2021. David Murphy, EI9HWB and Fergal Marshall of the EIRSAT-1 team gave a comprehensive technical run-through of the satellite’s payload, subsystems and onboard communications. You can watch the entire video presentation at: https://amsat-uk.org/.
[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information.]
Tel Aviv TAU-SAT1 Gets Press Coverage
The Times of Israel posted an informative article on the Tel Aviv University’s plans to launch a “shoebox-size” satellite next year. Read the article at: https://tinyurl.com/ANS-313-Te
[ANS thanks Mark Johns, K0JM for the above information.]
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 additional 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 student rate for a maximum of six post-secondary years in this status.
Contact Martha at the AMSAT office for additional student membership information.
73,
This week’s ANS Editor,
Frank Karnauskas, N1UW
n1uw at amsat dot org