by Peter Goodhall | Nov 23, 2013 | Daily Updates
This week has seen deployments from the ISS, a Minotaur-1 and a Dnepr of an estimated 34 satellites carrying amateur radio payloads along with a number of commercial and research satellites. After a launch the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) issue the...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 22, 2013 | Daily Updates
The FUNcube Team are planning to open the SSB/CW linear transponder on the FUNcube-1 (AO-73) CubeSat for a single orbit on Saturday, November 23. The aim of this test is to establish the thermal performance of the satellite when in this mode for an extended period....
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 22, 2013 | Daily Updates
$50SAT – Eagle2 – the PICAXE and RFM22B micro satellite was successfully launched from Dombarovsky Air Base in Russia on November 21 at 07:10 UT. It went active soon after being released from UNISAT-5 and the 437.505 MHz (+/-10 kHz Doppler shift) Morse...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 22, 2013 | Daily Updates
On Friday, November 22 a film crew from the BBC Breakfast show visited the RSGB National Radio Centre (NRC) at Bletchley Park to interview the FUNcube Project team about the new educational amateur radio satellite FUNcube-1 (AO-73). BBC presenter John Maguire...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 22, 2013 | Daily Updates
The first test of the FUNcube-1 (AO-73) SSB/CW linear transponder took place on Friday, November 22. The transponder was successfully commanded on at 10:49 UT and at 10:51 GB3RS successfully transmitted through the inverting transponder using a pair of Yaesu FT-817...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 21, 2013 | Daily Updates
On Thursday evening the FUNcube team successfully uploaded the first Fitter message to the FUNcube-1 (AO-73) satellite. ‘Fitter’ is derived from ‘Twitter’. So it’s like a tweet, but via FUNcube. The message is a short (200 characters maximum) text-like message which...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 21, 2013 | Daily Updates
The FUNcube team are delighted to be able to release the formal email received at the Bletchley Park monitoring station on the afternoon of Thursday, November 21, informing us that the FUNcube-1 spacecraft can now be referred to as AMSAT-OSCAR-73 (AO-73)....
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 21, 2013 | Daily Updates
Pete Sipple M0PSX from the Essex Ham website was one of a handful of UK amateurs to receive and decode the data signals from the satellite in its second UK pass at 10:28 GMT today. Pete had tried receiving the first pass over the UK just before 09:00 GMT, but this was...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 21, 2013 | Daily Updates
The BBC report that the Dnepr rocket launching from Yasny in Russia has set a record for the most payloads carried to orbit in a single mission. They say the converted intercontinental missile released 32 objects in space – mostly small, so called...
by Peter Goodhall | Nov 21, 2013 | Daily Updates
The SwampSat team at the University of Florida is requesting assistance in collecting telemetry from their 1U pico-satellite, which was successfully launched at 01:15 UT on November 20. SwampSat will begin transmitting a beacon after 01:15 UT on November 21 (24 hours...
