Fox

RadFxSat (Fox-1B) Launch Date is Now Scheduled for March 16, 2017

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The RadFxSat (Fox-1B) launch date has been moved, and is now scheduled for March 16, 2017.

RadFxSat will ride as one of the ELaNa XIV secondary payloads aboard the NASA JPSS-1 launch on a ULA Delta II rocket.

The launch will be at Vandenberg AFB, California.  It is one of only two remaining Delta II planned to be launched.

The RadFxSat mission is a partnership with Vanderbilt Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE) that will study space radiation effects on commercial off the shelf memory.  The experiments are carried aboard the AMSAT Fox-1B CubeSat and experiment data will be carried in the subaudible telemetry stream of the Fox-1B FM repeater along with the CubeSat telemetry data.  The telemetry can be decoded and displayed with the AMSAT FoxTelem software.

[ANS thanks Jerry Buxton, N0JY AMSAT Vice President, Engineering
for the above information]

The RadFxSat (Fox-1B) flight model undergoes testing in the Fox Labs.
The RadFxSat (Fox-1B) flight model undergoes testing in the Fox Labs.

RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) Launch Scheduled for December 2017

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AMSAT has been informed that the launch for the NASA Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) XX mission carrying RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) has been scheduled for December 2017.

In addition to RadFxSat-2, the ELaNa XX mission will carry 12 CubeSats constructed both by NASA and several universities around the United States. The mission will be launched by Virgin Galactic on their LauncherOne air launch to orbit system from Mojave, CA

RadFxSat-2, like RadFxSat (Fox-1B), is a partnership opportunity between the Vanderbilt University Institute for Space and Defense Electronics and AMSAT and will carry a similar radiation effects experiment, studying new FinFET technology.

RadFxSat-2 will be the fifth Fox-1 satellite built by AMSAT. Fox-1A, now AMSAT-OSCAR 85 (AO-85), was launched on October 8, 2015 and is fully operational, providing science data from it’s onboard experiments and FM transponder service for the amateur radio community. Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D are scheduled for launch this fall and RadFxSat is scheduled to launch in early 2017.

The RadFxSat-2 spacecraft bus will be built on the Fox-1 series but will feature a linear transponder “upgrade” to replace the standard FM transponder in Fox-1A through D. In addition, the uplink and downlink bands will be reversed from the previous Fox satellites in a Mode V/u (J) configuration using a 2 meter uplink and 70 cm downlink. The downlink will feature a 1200 bps BPSK telemetry channel to carry the Vanderbilt science data in addition to a 30 kHz wide transponder for amateur radio use.

RadFxSat-2 Logo

Fox-1Cliff, Fox-1D Launch Now Scheduled for Fall 2016

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AMSAT has been informed that the launch period for Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D has been moved and is now commencing on September 1, 2016 and ending on November 30, 2016.

Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D will be integrated onto the Spaceflight SHERPA platform for its maiden flight aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launching into a sun-synchronous orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Fox-1Cliff and Fox-1D carry university experiments from Pennsylvania State-Erie, Vanderbilt, University of Iowa, cameras provided by Virginia Tech, as well as amateur radio voice repeaters capable of U/v or L/v operation.

Fox1-Cliff Logo Fox-1D Logo

FoxTelem Release 1.04 Supports New Graphs, Better Performance, and the Upcoming Launches

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From FoxTelem developer Chris Thompson, G0KLA / AC2CZ:

This is a quick note to say that FoxTelem Version 1.04 is being released. There is a lot in this version so I have written some blog posts to summarize new features.  See below.

You can download FoxTelem for your platform from one of these links:
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/windows/foxtelem_1.04f_windows.zip
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/linux/foxtelem_1.04f_linux.tar.gz
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/mac/FoxTelem_1.04f_mac.zip

Broadly speaking the changes fit into the following categories:

1. Full support for Fox-1Cliff, Fox-1D and RadFXSat including better High Speed decoding and a better find signal algorithm.

2. Additional analytical capabilities so you can plot one telemetry variable against another.  I hope this will inspire more people to analyze the telemetry from the spacecraft and post comments on what they see.  I have put some of my own thoughts online here:
http://www.g0kla.com/workbench/2016-05-07.php

3. Enhanced tools to analyze your ground station with SkyPlots for satellite measurements like Signal to Noise ratio and graphs for pass measurements. Skyplots in particular need a bit of explanation, so I have written more details here: http://www.g0kla.com/foxtelem/skyplot.php

You can read a full list of the changes here on github:
https://github.com/ac2cz/FoxTelem/issues?q=is%3Aissue+milestone%3A%22Release+1.04%22+is%3Aclosed

73
Chris
G0KLA / AC2CZ