AMSAT News

RadFxSat Completes Shock Testing

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RadFxSat returned to Fox Labs this weekend after spending a little over a week with Tyvak in California as they placed her in a test pod for environmental shock testing along with one of the other 1U satellites that will be flying in our P-POD on the ELaNa XIV mission.

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The weekend post shock unpacking and inspection have been streamed on YouTube as we have been doing in the past with the progress of RadFxSat, and will continue through the week as the Short Functional Test and Aliveness Test are performed to verify that RadFxSat survived the shock test not only physically, but functionally.

You can watch the live streaming and the archived feeds at http://www.YouTube.com/c/n0jy/live.
Follow @N0JY Tweets announcing the live feeds when they are about to happen.

RadFxSat heads for Boxborough, MA for the vibration test and thermal vacuum bakeout on October 10, which will complete all of the work to be done (except reports) and put RadFxSat “in the bag” to await delivery for the scheudled March 16, 2017 launch on the ELaNa XIV mission from Vandenberg AFB in California.

Phase 5 / Phase 4B 5.7 GHz LNA Prototype

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Continued progress with the Phase 5 (CQC) and Phase 4B satellite missions –

Marc Franco, N2UO, provided these photos showing the mechanical prototype of the 5.7 GHz LNA that AMSAT is developing for the P5 (lunar) and P4B (geosynchronous) satellites.
(Unfortunately, due to ITAR restrictions, we cannot share any more details.)

lna-prototype-img_0256lna-prototype-img_0255

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.

AMSAT-NA Event Reminders

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A few reminders regarding upcoming AMSAT-NA Events:

1. Ballots for the Board of Directors election are due at the AMSAT-NA office in one week (September 15, 2016). Please mail your ballots in today. Ballots that arrive after the close of business on September 15th will not be counted.

2. The 2016 AMSAT-NA Space Symposium and General Meeting will be held aboard the Carnival Liberty November 10th – November 14th. If you have not yet booked your cruise and plan on attending, please do so as soon as possible. See here for further information:

http://www.amsat.org/wordpress/?page_id=3667

3. If you have already booked your cruise, please remember to register for the Symposium. You can register via the AMSAT online store here:

http://store.amsat.org/catalog/index.php?cPath=39

4. If you plan to attend the Symposium and wish to bring radios to operate, please remember that the Carnival Liberty is registered in Panama. US licensed amateur operators wishing to operate at sea must obtain an IARP from the ARRL. Details are available at the following site:

http://www.arrl.org/iarp

Unfortunately, obtaining a license for operation in Mexico or within Mexican territorial waters is likely not possible at this time.

5. If you wish to contribute a paper to the Symposium Proceedings and/or present at the Symposium, please email Dan Schultz (n8fgv at amsat.org) with a proposed title as soon as possible, preferably by September 15th. Final papers must be submitted by October 15th for publication in the printed Proceedings.