After two weeks in orbit, UWE-4 is in very good shape. The batteries are fully charged, the temperatures of the batteries, the outside panels and the MCU are all lying in the expected range.
The temperatures of the outside Panels of UWE‑4 on the first day after launch
UWE-4 battery temperatures and State-of-charge on the first day after launch
It can be seen, that the battery temperatures are slightly rising around 8:45 am, when the downlink of this measurement took place.
After the early orbit phase, we are looking forward to some interesting experiments with the attitude determination sensors and the propulsion system.
Unfortunately, our uplink success rate is very poor, which currently prevents these experiments. In the precursor mission UWE-3, it was found that the reason for this is very likely a substantial noise floor at the used frequency range. For this reason, we filed a request for the change of our radio frequency to 435.600 MHz with IARU, which has already been approved.
Today, we will start the procedure to change the frequency of UWE‑4. So if you want to track UWE-4, please adjust your center frequency accordingly. We already started the procedure to change the frequency on UWE‑4, so during the next days it may happen that you can also still receive a signal on our old frequency. Additionally, we have been assigned NORAD ID 43880 in the meantime.
A tool in order to upload the received UWE-4 telemetry directly into our groundstation database is at the moment work in progress and will be shared with you as soon as we have tested it thoroughly. Until then, we would be very grateful, if you’d forward your UWE-4 telemetry files to uwe4@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de.
Kind regards,
The UWE‑4 Team