ANS

Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 Commissioning Status

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Following the launch of Fox-1Cliff/AO-95, AMSAT Engineering began the commissioning process, with the help of AMSAT Operations, on Tuesday December 4. Satellite telemetry indicates that the bird is healthy, and I thank all of the stations who have captured and relayed the telemetry that enabled us to monitor and determine the health of the various systems on board. Fox-1Cliff required an extended period monitoring battery and power levels due to the anomaly and fix that was applied back in February of 2016 during environmental testing, and the result of that is positive.

However, during the next steps of commissioning we discovered an anomaly with her receive capability. After a few days of tests, analysis, and discussion, it appears that Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 will not be commissioned as our fourth Fox-1 amateur radio satellite.

AMSAT Engineering will continue to evaluate and test Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 for solutions to the anomaly and your continued help in providing telemetry is appreciated so that we can have data throughout her daily orbits rather than limited data over our U.S. stations. The data, analysis, and testing could lead to a positive solution but at the very least will be important to AMSAT’s satellite programs in providing information that would help us and others, as we do freely share our successes and failures, to avoid similar situations with future missions.

I would like to thank all of the AMSAT Fox Engineering volunteers who made Fox-1Cliff possible and continue to build our new satellites, becoming even better as we move forward.

I will provide more information on the anomaly and any determination we make regarding the possible cause or causes as well as information on the possibility of recovery, over time. Please be patient regarding that. Many of you have probably built a project and had to troubleshoot it on your bench, we are in a troubleshooting situation here with the additional challenge of being 600 km away from our bench.

73
Jerry Buxton, N0JY
AMSAT Vice President of Engineering

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

Fox-1Cliff Designated AMSAT-OSCAR 95 (AO-95)

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On December 3rd, 2018, Fox-1Cliff was launched on a Falcon 9 vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Part of Spaceflight’s SSO-A: SmallSat Express launch, Fox-1Cliff was named after long time AMSAT supporter Cliff Buttschardt, K7RR (SK). In the 48 hours after launch, more than 110 amateur radio operators around the world have successfully received and submitted telemetry from the satellite.

Following in our long tradition of naming amateur satellites, AMSAT hereby designates Fox-1Cliff as AMSAT-OSCAR 95 (AO-95).

Thank you to those who have supported this mission with their time, talent, and financial support for the benefit of amateur radio operators worldwide.

73,
Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA
AMSAT VP Operations / OSCAR Number Administrator

[ANS thanks Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, AMSAT VP Operations /  OSCAR Number Administrator for the above information]

AO-92 to Try Imaging Hurricane Florence September 13-14

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AMSAT Vice-President of Operations, Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA says that the camera on AO-92 is planned to be used to try to image Hurricane Florence during North American east coast passes on Thursday, September 13, and Friday, September 14.

AO-92 will not be in its U/V FM voice transponder operation during these passes. Ground stations should standby and not attempt to access AO-92 during this time. Voice operation will be available later during these days.

The high speed image data will be transmitted on the 145.880 MHz downlink.

The image can be captured, decoded, and uploaded to the Fox-1 data warehouse using the FoxTelem v.1.06 software available from AMSAT:
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/windows
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/mac
http://amsat.us/FoxTelem/linux

[ANS thanks AMSAT Vice-President of Operations, Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA for the above information]

AO-91 Commissioned, Declared Open for Amateur Use

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At 06:50 UTC on November 23, 2017, AMSAT Engineering officially commissioned AO-91 (RadFxSat/Fox-1B). AMSAT Vice-President Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, turned over operation to AMSAT Operations in a QSO on the AO-91 transponder with Mark Hammond, N8MH, of the AMSAT Operations team during the pass over the Eastern United States.

N8MH responded and declared AO-91 open for amateur use!

AO-91 was built as a partnership with Vanderbilt University ISDE and hosts four payloads for the study of radiation effects on commercial off the shelf components. The satellite was launched on November 18, 2017 as part of the ELaNa XIV mission, secondary payloads aboard the Delta II rocket that carried the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1) satellite to orbit. AO-91 also features the Fox-1 style FM U/v repeater with an uplink on 435.250 MHz (67.0 Hz CTCSS) and a downlink on 145.960 MHz. Satellite and experiment telemetry are downlinked via the “DUV” subaudible telemetry stream and can be decoded with the FoxTelem software.

Radio Programming Chart

AO-91 Doppler Shift Correction
Memory Your Transmit Frequency(With 67 Hz Tone) Your Receive Frequency
Acquisition of Signal (AOS) 435.240 MHz 145.960 MHz
Approaching 435.245 MHz 145.960 MHz
Time of Closest Approach (TCA) 435.250 MHz 145.960 MHz
Departing 435.255 MHz 145.960 MHz
Loss of Signal (LOS) 435.260 MHz 145.960 MHz