The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a
free, weekly news and infor-
mation service of AMSAT, The Radio Amateur
Satellite Corporation. ANS
publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space
including reports on
the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio
operators who
share an active interest in designing, building, launching and
commun-
icating through analog and digital Amateur Radio
satellites.
The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of
Amateur
Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.
Please
send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
ans-editor at
amsat.org.
You can sign up for free e-mail delivery of the AMSAT News
Service
Bulletins via the ANS List; to join this list see:
http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/ans
In
this edition:
* Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, Elected AMSAT President
*
Phoenix CubeSat Upcoming Deployment
* New ISS Tour Video Goes Inside Cygnus
NG-12
* Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution
* HuskySat-1 Gains
Enthusiastic Following
* Robert Bankston, KE4AL, Proposes amsatLink
Project
* 10 US Schools Moved Forward in ARISS Selection Process
* AMSAT
at Yuma (Arizona) Hamfest, 14-15 February 2020
* Hamfests, Conventions, Maker
Faires, and Other Events
* Upcoming Satellite Operations
* Satellite
Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-040.01
ANS-040 AMSAT News
Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 040.01
From AMSAT
HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
DATE 2020 Feb 09
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID:
$ANS-040.01
Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, Elected AMSAT President
At a
special meeting held via teleconference, the AMSAT Board of
Directors elected
Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, President. Coleman previous-
ly served as a member of
the Board of Directors from 2017-2019 and
also served as AMSAT's Secretary
during this time. He has also volun-
teered in several other capacities for
AMSAT, including chairing the
2016 AMSAT Space Symposium held aboard the
cruise ship Carnival
Liberty.
Coleman’s first introduction to amateur
radio in space was with SAREX
and Mir. An interest in setting up an AX.25 BBS
and nodes led to him
trying out the Mir Personal Message System (PMS) and
digipeater to
make contacts in the early 1990s. It wasn’t until a visit from
a
friend in 2011 that Coleman was bitten by the OSCAR bug and began
his
AMSAT journey chasing operating awards.
Having held other
leadership roles in his community, nonprofits, and
critical infrastructure,
Coleman’s desire is working with constituents
to improve organizational
processes and align them with strategic
goals. Professionally, Coleman works
in the industrial process con-
trol sector as both a consultant and business
development manager. He
resides in the North Texas area with his spouse and
two children.
[ANS thanks the AMSAT Board of Directors and AMSAT
President Clayton
Coleman, W5PFG for the above
information]
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Phoenix
CubeSat Upcoming Deployment
Several CubeSats are scheduled to be deployed
from the ISS into orbit
on 12 Feb. Among them is the Phoenix CubeSat, which
is a 3U CubeSat
developed by Arizona State University to study the effects of
Urban
Heat Islands through infrared remote sensing. Following
deployment,
the Phoenix operations team would appreciate as much help as
possible
with identifying the spacecraft and verifying that it is
operational.
Phoenix is scheduled for a deployment time of *8:30 UTC* on
12 Feb.
Please note that two CubeSats being deployed on this date operate
on
the same frequency. Both Phoenix and QARMAN share the frequency
of
*437.35 MHz*, and both utilize an AX.25 9600 baud protocol with
GMSK
modulation. Both CubeSats will also be deployed within 1.5 hours
of
each other, and will therefore be close to each other in orbit.
Please
be mindful of this situation, and if you have any doubt about the
Cube-
Sat that you are receiving, please get in touch with Sarah
Rogers,
Project Manager, Phoenix CubeSat, sroger13 [at} asu.edu with any
ques-
tions or concerns.
To read more about the Phoenix CubeSat, it's
transmitter characteris-
tics, and how you can decode the signal, please see
the website at
http://phxcubesat.asu.edu/content/amateur-operations!
[ANS
thanks Sarah Rogers, KI7OOY, for the above
information]
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AMSAT, along with our ARISS partners, is developing an Amateur
Radio
package, including two-way communication capability, to
be carried
on-board Gateway in lunar orbit.
Support AMSAT's projects today at https://www.amsat.org/donate/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
New
ISS Tour Video Goes Inside Cygnus NG-12
A video by astronauts Luca
Parmitano and Andrew Morgan posted on the
European Space Agency YouTube
channel on January 26th, 2020 shows Luca
going inside the Cygnus NG-12
vehicle, which took cargo, as well as
several satellites, including
HuskySat-1, to the ISS.
Even more relevant to HuskySat-1 and the the
amateur radio satellite
community, Luca mentions the "delivery system" they
planned to install
on the vehicle before it was released, which happened on
January 31st.
HuskySat-1 was deployed from the delivery system later that
day. Luca
says he thinks it's really cool that the delivery system
provides
another way to gain access to space, and I couldn't agree
more.
The Cygnus tour begins at 24:42 into the video, and the
delivery
system is mentioned at 26:57.
This link to the video goes
directly to 24:42:
https://youtu.be/Snn1k_qEx20?t=1482
[ANS
thanks John Brier, KG4AKV, for the above
information]
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Changes
to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution
The following satellite's NORAD CAT ID has
been changed in this week's
AMSAT TLE distribution:
OCULUS-ASR is now
object NORAD CAT ID 44348
The following satellites have been deleted from
this week's AMSAT TLE
distribution:
OBJECT H - NORAD CAT ID 44346
(non-amateur satellite TEPCE, decayed
February 1,2020)
OBJECT J - NORAD
CAT ID 44347 (non-amateur satellite FALCONSAT-7)
TBEX-A - NORAD CAT ID
44356 (non-amateur satellite)
The following Amateur Radio satellite has
been added to this week's
TLE distribution:
HuskySat 1 - NORAD CAT ID
45117 (Cygnus NG-12 Spacecraft deployment,
1/31/2020).
(Thanks to Nico
Janseen, PA0DLO, for satellite identification.)
[ANS thanks Ray Hoad,
WA5QGD, AMSAT Orbital Elements Manager, for the
above
information]
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HuskySat-1
Gains Enthusiastic Following
Initial reports indicate considerable
interest among amateurs in
tracking and capturing data from the newly
deployed HuskySat-1. The
satellite, designed at the University of Washington,
was launched to
the ISS by Cygnus NG-12 on November 2, 2019. It was deployed
to a
higher orbit from the ISS by Cygnus on January 31, and began
telemetry
transmissions on 435.800 MHz.
HuskySat-1’s 1,200 bps BPSK
beacon is active and decodable with the
latest release of AMSAT’s FoxTelem
software. FoxTelem is available at
https://github.com/ac2cz/FoxTelem
HuskySat-1
is a CubeSat, and will demonstrate onboard plasma propul-
sion and high gain
telemetry for low Earth orbit that would be a pre-
cursor for an attempt at a
larger CubeSat designed for orbital inser-
tion at the
Moon.
HuskySat-1 is expected to carry out its primary mission before
being
turned over to AMSAT for activation of a 30 kHz wide V/U linear
trans-
ponder for SSB and CW.
Initially it looked like object
2019-071G was HuskySat-1, but our
friends at the 18th Space Control Squadron
published data on addi-
ional objects in recent days, and there is
considerable evidence
suggesting that HuskySat-1 is actually one of those
instead.
Element sets for objects 2019-071H and 2019-071J are now
distributed
in nasabare.txt as candidates for the "Real"
HuskySat-1.
Usually element sets are good for a week or more, at least
for ham
purposes where we have fairly wide beam widths. The exception is
the
ISS, the only spacecraft we have in nasabare.txt that maneuvers,
and
we keep its element sets "fresh" by applying updates from
Johnson
Spaceflight Center several times per day. Husky-Sat 1 will be
testing
a thruster early in its mission, and endeavors to demonstrate a
delta-
V of 100m/sec or more. This could cause the accuracy of element
sets
to degrade more quickly than usual.
[ANS thanks Joe Fitzgerald,
KM1P, AMSAT IT Team Leader for the
above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert
Bankston, KE4AL, Proposes amsatLink Project
amsatLink is a proposed
three-phased program to ultimately establish a
constellation of
nanosatellites, linked in a peer-to-peer voice commun-
ications network for
amateur satellite service. As a wireless ad hoc
network, future satellites
can be added to the network and ground
stations, moving in and out of a
nanosatellite node’s footprint, can
easily join and exit the
network.
The proposal is to create an IEEE 802.11 wireless ad hoc
network, op-
erating within the FCC Part 97 amateur radio frequency
allocation of
the 2.4 GHz microwave band. Individual satellite and ground
nodes would
connect directly, dynamically, and non-hierarchically to as many
other
nodes as possible and cooperate with one another to create one
virtual
network that can efficiently route data from/to clients.
While
the idea of cross-link communication between satellites is not
new, amsatLink
hopes to continue the efforts of NASA’s PhoneSat, EDSN
constellation, and
NODES missions, by expanding the network to include
ground-based nodes,
demonstrating the use of voice over internet pro-
tocol communications, and
organizing nodes into clusters, where each
cluster consists of one
nanosatellite node and any visible ground nodes.
amsatLink will continue
NASA’s design philosophy by utilizing commer-
cial-off-the-shelf hardware and
keeping the design and mission objec-
tives as simple as possible. Estimated
total hardware cost per satel-
lite is less than $5,000. Proposed ground
stations will also use off
the shelf equipment with a total estimated cost of
less than $150.
For more details, see https://ke4al.github.io/amsatLink/
Robert seeks
further discussion of this proposal among AMSAT
members.
[ANS thanks Robert Bankston, KE4AL, for the above
information]
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Purchase AMSAT Gear on our Zazzle storefront.
25% of the purchase
price of each product goes
towards Keeping Amateur Radio in
Space
https://www.zazzle.com/amsat_gear
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10
US Schools Moved Forward in ARISS Selection Process
Amateur Radio on the
International Space Station (ARISS) is pleased to
announce the schools and
host organizations selected for the second
half of 2020. Of the proposals
submitted during the recent proposal
window, 10 were accepted to move forward
in the selection process for
a scheduled amateur radio contact with a crew
member on the ISS. The
primary goal of the ARISS program is to engage young
people in Science,
Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) activities
and raise
their awareness of space communications, radio communications,
space
exploration, and related areas of study and career
possibilities.
The schools and host organizations are now engaged in the
next step of
the acceptance process. When ready, they will be put in the
scheduling
queue for a contact during the July to December 2020 time period.
Al-
though ARISS expects to schedule all 10 during this period, changes
to
NASA crew availability might force some delays to the next time
period.
The schools and host organizations are:
Estes Park
Elementary School
Estes Park, CO
Green Bank Elementary
School
Green Bank, WV
Tecumseh Public School
Tecumseh, OK
RSU #21
Kennebunk, ME
JFK High
School
Denver, CO
Oregon Charter School
Mill City,
OR
Newcastle High School
Newcastle, WY
Tarwater
Elementary School
Chandler, AZ
Kopernik Observatory
Vestel, NY
Salem-South Lyon District Library
South Lyon,
MI
[ANS thanks Dave Jordan, AA4KN, ARISS PR, for the above
information]
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AMSAT
at Yuma (Arizona) Hamfest, 14-15 February 2020
AMSAT will be at the Yuma
Hamfest, which is also serving as the 2020
ARRL Southwestern Division
Convention, on Friday and Saturday, 14-15
February 2020. The hamfest will be
at the Yuma County Fairgrounds,
along 32nd Street, across the street from
Yuma International Airport
and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, south of
Interstate 8. More about
the hamfest is available at:
http://www.yumahamfest.org/
WD9EWK
will be on the satellites during the hamfest, demonstrating
satellite
operating. If you hear WD9EWK on a pass, please call and join
in the
demonstration. The hamfest site is in grid DM22, in Arizona's
Yuma County.
QSOs made during the hamfest will be uploaded to Logbook
of the World, and
QSL cards are available on request (please e-mail
WD9EWK directly with the
QSO details).
Patrick will tweet updates from the hamfest using the
@WD9EWK Twitter
account. If you do not use Twitter, you can see the tweets in
a web
browser at:
http://twitter.com/WD9EWK
In
addition to the WD9EWK demonstration, AMSAT member Dave Bartholomew,
AD7DB,
will give a presentation "Getting Started on FM Satellites" on
Saturday (15
February) morning at the hamfest. Dave's presentation is
scheduled for 10:20
a.m.
[ANS thanks Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK/VA7EWK, for the above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamfests,
Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
AMSAT Ambassadors provide
presentations, demonstrate communicating
through amateur satellites, and host
information tables at club meet-
ings, hamfests, conventions, maker faires,
and other events.
Current schedule:
February 14-15, 2020, Yuma
Hamfest and ARRL Southwest Division
Convention, Yuma, AZ (see
details above)
February 15, 2020, Cabin Fever Reliever Hamfest, Saint
Cloud, MN
March 6, 2020, Irving Hamfest, Irving, TX
March 14-15,
2020, Science City, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ
March 21, 2020,
Midwinter Madness Hamfest, Buffalo, MN
March 21, 2020, Scottsdale (AZ)
Amateur Radio Club Hamfest
March 28, 2020, Tucson Spring Hamfest, Tucson,
AZ
March 29, 2020, Vienna Wireless Winterfest, Annandale, VA
May
2, 2020, Cochise Amateur Radio Assn. Hamfest, Sierra Vista, AZ
May 8-9,
2020 Prescott Hamfest, Prescott, AZ
May 15-17, Hamvention, Xenia,
OH
June 12-13, 2020, Ham-Con, Plano, TX
A copy of the AMSAT
hamfest brochure is available for download: AMSAT
Intro Brochure. This color
brochure is designed to be printed double-
sided and folded into a tri-fold
handout.
To include your upcoming AMSAT presentation and/or
demonstration,
please send an email to ambassadors (at) amsat (dot)
org.
[ANS thanks Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT VP-User Services, for
the
above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Upcoming
Satellite Operations
Satellite Shorts
Feb 15 CN78 ADODX FM and
Linear (@ad0dx)
Mar 14-15 DN26/36 KC7JPC Linears (and possibly
FM)
#SnowBirdRove (EL79) – February 1-29, 2020
Joe, KE9AJ, will
cross the border into Florida, seeking climatical
asylum in EL79 for the
entire month of February. Since he will be
there for an extended period,
with both FM and linear gear, keep
an eye on Joe’s Twitter feed for
specific pass announcements:
https://twitter.com/KE9AJ
Key West
and Boca Grande Key (EL94, EL84+) February 9-11,2020
Clayton, W5PFG, will
be in Key West, Florida (EL94) February 9
through the 11, 2020. Monday,
February 10, 13:15-17:30 UTC, Clay-
ton will operate FM & SSB
satellites from EL84xm, Boca Grande Key.
Listen for W5PFG near these
dates for additional Florida grids,
such as EL79, EL89, EL99, EL86, EL96,
& EL95. Keep an eye on Clay-
ton’s Twitter feed for announcements https://twitter.com/w5pfg
Del Carmen
Island (EK48cp) February 9, 2020
Ismael, XE1AY, will operate from Del
Carmen Island (DL87th) on Sun-
day 9 February, using the callsign 4A2L
(see QRZ). Ismael only
expects to operate FM satellites for a couple of
hours. In addi-
tion, they plan to operate CW, SSB, and FT8.
Isla
Perez, Mexico (EL52, EL50, EL51) February 11 – 17, 2020
Members of Radio
Club Puebla DX will be active as 6F3A from Isla
Perez, Mexico, between
February 11-17. The operators mentioned are
Patricia/XE1SPM (Team
Leader), Ismael/XE1AY, Eduardo/XE2YW and
Ricardo/XE1SY. Activity will be
on 80/40/20/17/15/12/10/6 meters,
and include the ARRL DX CW Contest
(February 15-16). QSL via XE1SY.
Ismael, XE1AY, reports that he doing CW
and the satellites, and
will also TX from EL50 and XE1AY/mm from
EL51.
Big Bend National Park (DL88) March 16-17, 2020
Ron AD0DX,
Doug N6UA, and Josh W3ARD will operate from Big Bend
National Park to put
grid DL88 on the air. Details will be added
here, as they come
available, but you are more than welcome to
keep an eye on their
individual Twitter feeds:
https://twitter.com/ad0dx, https://twitter.com/dtabor, and
https://twitter.com/W3ARDstroke5
Please
submit any additions or corrections to ke4al (at) amsat.org
[ANS thanks
Robert Bankston, KE4AL, AMSAT VP-User Services, for the
above
information]
Operators Alex/VE1RUS and Pierre/VE3TKB will once again be
active as
VY0ERC from the Eureka Weather station between now and March
28th.
This station is operated by the Eureka Amateur Radio Club
[probably
the most northerly located amateur radio club in the world]
from
Eureka, Nunavut, Canada. The suggested bands are 40 and 20
meters
(possibly 80m), as well as FM satellites (from ER60, EQ79)
using
SSB, the Digital modes (FT8 and RTTY) and very slow CW.
Activity
will be limited to their spare time. QSL via M0OXO, OQRS or
direct.
For updates, see: https://twitter.com/vy0erc
[ANS
thanks The Ohio/Penn Dx Bulletin for the above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Satellite
Shorts From All Over
+ After setting a record for the longest single
spaceflight in history
by a woman, NASA astronaut Christina Koch returned
to Earth on Feb.
6, along with Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov of the
Russian
space agency Roscosmos and Luca Parmitano of the European
Space
Agency. Koch launched March 14, 2019. Her first journey into
space
of 328 days is the second-longest single spaceflight by a U.S.
astro-
naut and also places her seventh on the list of cumulative time
in
space for American astronauts. Full story: https://bit.ly/386BTrc
(ANS thanks
spaceref.com for the above information)
+ SpaceX has been garnering all
the headlines when it comes to satel-
lite constellations. Their Starlink
system will eventually have thou-
sands of tiny satellites working together
to provide internet access.
But on Thursday, Feb. 6, OneWeb launched 34
satellite from the Bai-
konur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Soyuz launch
vehicle. Eventually,
OneWeb intends to have as many as 5,000 satellites in
orbit.
(ANS thank universetoday.com for the above information)
+ An
industry report forecasts demand for 14,000 to 20,000 new satel-
lites to
be launched in the next decade. The report suggests that
launch slot
availability will be a challenge for satellite operators,
and that delays
due to longer lead times and additional costs will
put pressure on
research, commercial, and military operators.
(ANS thanks satmagazine.com
for the above information)
+ NASA declared the Spitzer Space Telescope’s
16-year mission complete
on Thursday, Jan. 30 after sending final commands
for the spacecraft
to enter hibernation as it drifts farther from Earth.
The Spitzer
Space Telescope, one of NASA’s original four “Great
Observatories,”
studied the most distant galaxy ever observed in the
universe,
gathered data on the characteristics of planets around other
stars,
and detected a new ring around Saturn.
(ANS thanks
spaceflightnow.com for the above information)
+ Finnish amateur
photographers have discovered a new auroral form.
Named 'dunes' by the
hobbyists, the phenomenon is believed to be
caused by waves of oxygen atoms
glowing due to a stream of particles
released from the Sun. In the study,
published in the journal AGU
Advances, the origins of the dunes were
tracked to a wave guide
formed within the mesosphere and its boundary, the
mesopause.
(ANS thanks astrowatch.net for the above information)
+
The JAMSAT general meeting and space symposium will take place at the
Tokyo, Odaiba, Science Museum on March 14 and 15.
(ANS thanks JAMSAT for
the above information)
+ Bob Atkins KA1GT has documented his recent
observations of interfer-
ence to 1296 EME from the Galileo navigation
satellites' E6 mode.
Read Bob's article at https://bobatkins.com/radio/galileo-1296.html
(ANS thanks Southgate ARC for the above information)
+ Minutes of the
2019 AMSAT Board of Directors meeting are now avail-
able at https://www.amsat.org/minutes-of-the-board-of-directors/
The December 2018 Annual Financial Review report is also now avail-
able at
https://www.amsat.org/audit-and-other-financial-reports/
(ANS thanks the AMSAT Office for the above
information)
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/EX
In
addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President's
Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining
donors to AMSAT Project
Funds, will be eligible to receive addi-
tional benefits. Application forms
are available from the AMSAT
Office.
Primary and secondary school
students are eligible for membership
at one-half the standard yearly rate.
Post-secondary school students
enrolled in at least half time status shall be
eligible for the stu-
dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in
this status.
Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student
membership
information.
73 and Remember to help keep amateur radio in
space,
This week's ANS Editor,
K0JM at amsat dot
org
_______________________________________________
Via the ANS mailing
list courtesy of AMSAT-NA
https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/ans
