AMSAT VP for Engineering Tony Monteiro, AA2TX, provided an up-to-the-minute review of AMSAT-NA’s next satellite, Fox-1, at the AMSAT Forum at the 2013 Dayton Hamvention.
The first of a number of satellites planned for Project Fox, Tony reviews the motivation for building a CubeSat, the components that comprise Fox-1, and the capabilities and experiments included. He describes the launch assigned by NASA for Fox-1 and gives a brief look at future Project Fox satellites.
The FM voice uplink of Fox-1 will be on 435.180 MHz and the downlink will be 145.980 MHz with an optional sub audible FSK digital carrier channel. The FM transponder is activated by a PL tone (CTCSS) and once triggered, it will stay on and repeat everything for 2 minutes even if there is no PL tone. It also re-triggers the timer every time the PL is detected.
The satellite will carry a camera that can take a VGA (640×480) image of the Earth every minute, it will take 50 seconds to download each image.
Watch Fox-1 Status Update, by Tony AA2TX – 2013 Dayton Hamvention
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gub5182mowg]
Further information on Fox at http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/2012/2012_Symposium_Fox_Overview.pdf
IARU Coordinates Frequencies for Fox-1a Ham Radio CubeSat
http://amsat-uk.org/2013/06/04/iaru-fox-1a-cubesat-frequencies/