AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-131
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@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:
* 2019 Back Issues of The AMSAT Journal on
launch.amsat.org
* Call for Nominations - 2020 AMSAT Board of Directors
Election
* New Chinese Amateur Satellites Expected to Launch in
September
* Cubesat Developers Workshop Presentations Available
* Visual
Observations Of RS-44 Underway
* Hack-a-Sat Call for Participation
* NASA
TV To Air Cygnus Departure From Space Station
* Online Amateur Radio
Satellite Talk on Zoom
* Satellite Distance Records Set
* Upcoming
Satellite Operations
* ARISS News
* Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires,
and Other Events
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT
$ANS-131.01
ANS-131 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News
Service Bulletin 131.01
From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
DATE
2020-May-10
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-131.01
2019 Back
Issues of The AMSAT Journal on launch.amsat.org
AMSAT's new online member
portal, launch.amsat.org, is up and running.
All AMSAT members must log in
and update their contact information to
ensure continued, uniterrupted
service. Full instructions for getting
logged in are in the March/April issue
of The AMSAT Journal, avail-
able for free download on amsat.org and
launch.amsat.org. There is
also separate instructions on each
site.
Those interested in joining AMSAT can create an account, using
the
Join link on launch.amsat.org
IMPORTANT UPDATE: AMSAT's Member
Portal not only puts you in charge
of your member account but gives you
exclusive access to member-only
content. Want to read back issues of The
AMSAT Journal, in full color?
We just posted all 2019 issues, plus the first
two issues of 2020. We
will continue to work on uploading prior years, so
check back often.
Log in today!
(ANS thanks Robert Bankston,
KE4AL, AMSAT VP-Member Services for the
above
information)
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMSAT office
is closed until further
notice. For details, please visit
https://www.amsat.org/amsat-office-closed-until-further-notice/
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Call
for Nominations - 2020 AMSAT Board of Directors Election
AMSAT solicits
nominations for the 2020 AMSAT Board of Directors
election, to be held in the
third quarter of the year. The seats of
the following three incumbent
Directors expire in 2020 and will be
filled by this year's election: Tom
Clark, K3IO; Mark Hammond, N8MH;
and Bruce Paige, KK5DO. Further, up to two
Alternate Directors may be
elected for one-year terms.
A valid
nomination for Director must be written and requires either
one Member
Society or five current individual members in good standing
to nominate an
AMSAT member. Written nominations, with the nominee’s
name, call sign, and
contact information, as well as the nominators'
names, call signs, and
contact information, should be sent to the
AMSAT Secretary:
Brennan
Price, N4QX
300 Locust St SE, Unit E
Vienna VA 22180-4869
brennanprice
at verizon.net
A copy should be sent to AMSAT Manager, Martha Saragovitz,
at
martha at amsat.org.
The AMSAT bylaws require that the nomination
be written and in the
form specified by the Secretary. In light of the
ongoing pandemic and
the resulting closure of the physical office, the
Secretary has
elected to accept written nomination materials in electronic
form,
including e-mail or electronic image of a paper document. Fax
trans-
missions cannot be accepted due to the closure of the
office.
No matter what means are used, petitions MUST be received by
the
Secretary no later than June 15th. The Secretary will verify the
qual-
ifications of candidates and nominating members or Member Societies
as
petitions are received, and will notify candidates whether their
nom-
inations are in order by the end of June.
[ANS thanks Brennan
Price, N4QX, AMSAT Secretary, for the
above
information]
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New
Chinese Amateur Satellites Expected to Launch in September
Two new
Chinese amateur radio satellites are now expected to launch on
September 15,
2020. The first of these satellites, CAS-7A, is a 27 kg
microsat (750 mm x
650 mm x 260 mm) with three-axis stabilization and
several transponders. The
transponders include a 15m to 10m linear
transponder (H/t), a 15m to 70cm
linear transponder (H/u), and a 2m to
70cm linear transponder(V/u). The
satellite also includes a 2m to 70cm
(V/u) FM transponder. Several beacons
and data downlinks are also feat-
ured, CW beacons on 10m and 70cm, 4.8k or
9.6k GMSK telemetry on 70cm,
and a 1 Mbps GMSK image data downlink on 3cm for
the on board camera.
IARU coordinated frequencies for the uplinks and
downlinks are listed
below.
This launch is also expected to carry
CAS-7C, a 2U CubeSat with a V/u
linear transponder and a CW beacon.
Frequencies for CAS-7C have not
been coordinated by the IARU at the time of
this writing. CAS-7C will
also deploy a 1 mm diameter 1080 meter long carbon
fiber rope.
CAS-7A and CAS-7C will launch from Jiuquan Satellite Launch
Center
into a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 98
degrees.
Frequencies:
CAS-7A H/t Linear Transponder
Uplink -
21.245MHz through 21.275 MHz
Downlink - 29.435MHz through 29.465 MHz
CW
Beacon 29.425 MHz
CAS-7A H/u Linear Transponder
Uplink - 21.3125 MHz
through 21.3275 MHz
Downlink - 435.3575 MHz through 435.3725 MHz
CW Beacon
435.430MHz
CAS-7A V/u Linear Transponder
Uplink - 145.865 MHz through
145.895 MHz
Downlink - 435.385 MHz through 435.415 MHz
CW Beacon
435.430MHz
CAS-7A V/u FM Transponder
Uplink 145.950 MHz
Downlink
435.455 MHz
4.8k / 9.6k GMSK telemetry downlink - 435.480 MHz
1 Mbps
GMSK image data downlink - 10460.00 MHz
[ANS thanks the IARU for the
above
information]
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Cubesat
Developers Workshop Presentations Available
Although we are not able to
come together in San Luis Obispo for the
CubeSat Developers Workshop today,
we are excited to share some of the
presentations that would have taken place
with you online. Find the
slide decks for these presentations on our
archive
<http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~workshop/archive/>
as well as videos on
our YouTube channel
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCENz0fNHsDR8Kz3jM6C_VWw/featured>.
You
will also be able to find all of our previous Workshop presentations
in
NASA's Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI)
<https://www.nasa.gov/smallsat-institute>.
We are excited to have our
archives integrated into S3VI and hope you can use
this tool to further
your research and involvement with CubeSat.
If
you were selected to present your abstract at this year's Workshop
and would
still like your presentation to be included in our archive,
email us at cubesat-workshop@calpoly.edu
<mailto:cubesat-workshop@calpoly.edu>.
We
also want to share some of our CDW Zoom backgrounds with you. Feel
free to
download and use them in your next meeting!
We look forward to welcoming
you all back to San Luis Obispo from *April
27-29, 2021* for the next CubeSat
Developers Workshop. We will continue
to announce new deadlines and
registration information via email and on
our website <https://www.cubesat.org/workshop-information>
as we
continue to plan for 2021. Be sure to join the CubeSat Workshop
mailing
list <http://www.cubesat.org/mailinglist/>
for future announcements.
We hope you continue working together (from
home) to advance CubeSats
[ANS thanks JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM, for the
above
information]
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Need new satellite antennas? Purchase Arrows, Alaskan Arrows,
and M2
LEO-Packs from the AMSAT Store. When you purchase through
AMSAT, a
portion of the proceeds goes towards
Keeping Amateur Radio
in Space.
https://amsat.org/product-category/hardware/
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Visual
Observations Of RS-44 Underway
Visual observations of the payload and
attached Briz-KM rocket body
made whilst the object has been flying over the
UK at night, indica-
ted a rotation period of 19 seconds. Optically with
binoculars, it
appeared between magnitude +5 to invisible in hazy moonlit
skies, on
near zenithal transits. No flashes nor glints were observed,
which
could indicate the stack is in a slow roll along the
longitudinal
axis, rather than a tumbling motion.
On a radio aspect,
it would appear the beacon signals are stronger
as the payload approaches,
declining thereafter upon passing TCA.
Assuming RS-44 is mounted to the front
and that some aerials have
deployed, then this would account for the
phenomenon, as receding
away from the station would have the aerials blocked
by the Briz
rocket body - however, I have not seen any information released
as to
the physical condition of RS-44. It would be useful for the
transmit-
ters to remain on, to monitor over the long term if the nutation
rate
slows over time. The CW beacon was timed at 20 seconds between
trans-
mission, which fits with the optical work, but this may well just
be
coincidental as to how the beacon is programmed.
Later radio
monitoring indicates the beacon repetition is 15-16 sec-
onds on the callsign
being transmitted. Whether this ties in with
hopefully future optical work to
see if the spin rate has slowed to
the same, or we have a differential - we
wait and see!
[ANS thanks Max White, M0VNG, for the above
information]
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Hack-a-Sat
Call for Participation
I've put out the call for participation for the
Hack-a-Sat competition
in the past, and would like to bring you all up to
date on the devel-
opments and opportunities that have developed
since.
The website is here: https://www.hackasat.com/
Hack-a-Sat
is an activity that was scheduled to happen at the in-per-
son DEFCON
event.
As of today, yes, it's true. DEFCON has been
cancelled.
Those of you that have volunteered at Ham Radio Village in the
past
are familiar with the event. For those of you that are not, it's
a
long-running hacking and cybersecurity event that has enthusiastical-
ly
adopted everything RF and amateur radio.
The United States Air Force, in
conjunction with the Defense Digital
Service, organized this year’s Space
Security Challenge, called Hack-
A-Sat. This challenge asks hackers from
around the world to focus
their skills and creativity on solving
cybersecurity challenges on
space systems. This competition is going to be
held! It's now a vir-
tual event.
Security in the amateur radio sense
of the word is fundamentally dif-
ferent from commercial and military
applications. We have an advan-
tage here, mainly due to the enormous
leverage we have due to our con-
text being completely different from what
the Air Force and commercial
interests assume. This is, essentially, a
diversity advantage.
If you want to participate on an experienced Capture
The Flag (CTF)
team, then I am here to extend an invitation. Anyone that
reads
through the rules and can afford to spend some time during the
event
is invited to apply to join Vaporsec. This is a team that has a
major-
ity of information security professionals. There are some
satellite
industry people, some amateur involvement, and I'd like to make
sure
that anyone interested in competing from AMSAT-BB gets a chance
to
join a competitive team.
The benefits to amateur radio are
primarily technical, with policy and
security a close second. The Air Force
has some agendas here in terms
of improving satellite security. Exposure to
the challenges alone is a
an excellent opportunity to learn more about modern
satellite technol-
ogy...and what a significant player in space wants to find
out more
about. Don't assume that that the challenges in the competition
are
going to be "too hard." What is trivial for one viewpoint is
unsolv-
able for another.
I'll be writing about the event and what we
learned when it is over,
so this sort of knowledge will not be secret.
However, there is no
replacement for participation, and you could very well
have the prac-
tical knowledge, gained from operating real satellites, that
wins the
competition. As you can see from the website, there is some real
money
involved and opportunities for technical writing.
Let me know at
w5nyv@arrl.net if you would like to talk
more about
joining a CTF team for this really neat and unique event. Know
someone
that you think should participate? Please forward to
them.
[ANS thanks Michelle Thompson, W5NYV, AMSAT Board Member for
the
above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
NASA
TV To Air Cygnus Departure From Space Station
Nearly three months after
delivering several tons of supplies and sci-
entific experiments to the
International Space Station, Northrup Grum-
man’s unpiloted Cygnus cargo
craft is scheduled to depart the Inter-
national Space Station on Monday, May
11.
Live coverage of the spacecraft’s release will air on NASA
Television
and the agency’s website beginning at 11:45 a.m. EDT, with
release
scheduled for noon.
Dubbed the “SS Robert H. Lawrence,” Cygnus
arrived at the station on
February 18. Within 24 hours of its release, Cygnus
will begin its
secondary mission, hosting the Spacecraft Fire Safety
Experiment – IV
(Saffire-IV), which provides an environment to safely study
fire in
microgravity. It also will deploy a series of payloads. Northrop
Grum-
man flight controllers in Dulles, Virginia, will initiate Cygnus’
de-
orbit to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere Monday, May 25.
More
information on Cygnus’ mission and the International Space Sta-
tion can be
found at: http://www.nasa.gov/station
[ANS
thanks Southgate ARC for the above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Online
Amateur Radio Satellite Talk on Zoom
Robin Moseley, G1MHU, will give a
talk on Zoom titled “Introduction
to amateur satellites, meteor scatter, EME
and ISS” on Wednesday,
May 13, at 1830z
The presentation is being
organised by the Denby Dales Amateur Radio
Society and being on Zoom it’ll be
viewable on any Tablet or Smartphone
with the Zoom App or from a Windows PC
or Laptop.
The Zoom meeting ID is 278 609 9353 https://zoom.us/j/2786099353
[ANS
thanks AMSAT-UK for the above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Satellite
Distance Records Set
Satellite operators are rapidly pushing towards the
7,942 km theoret-
ical maximum range on RS-44. The 7,859 km record held by
KI7UNJ and
JA0CAW was eclipsed on 06-May-2020 at 19:00 UTC with a QSO
between
EA4CYQ and UA0STM, a distance of 7,894 km. On 09-May-2020, this
record
fell again when W5CBF in Louisiana, USA worked LA7XK in Norway,
a
distance of 7,916 km.
Another claimed DX record was also claimed on
May 6. This time it was
on PO-101 (Diwata2PH). EA4SG reports working R9LR at
23:03 UTC. The
distance between the two stations is 5,128 km.
Distance
records for all satellites are maintained at:
https://www.amsat.org/satellite-distance-records/
Please
email n8hm [at] amsat.org if you wish to claim a new record,
longer distance
QSO not yet documented, or records for any other sat-
ellite/transponder not
yet listed. Please note that if a satellite
carries multiple transponders or
supports multiple frequency bands,
records on each transponder/band may be
claimed, such as Mode A and B
on AO-7 or Mode U/S, L/S, U/K, etc, on AO-40.
This includes the ISS
and records may be claimed for the packet digipeater
and crossband re-
peater, but does not include different operating modes on
the same
transponder (such as CW or SSB on AO-7 Mode B).
[ANS thanks
Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, AMSAT Executive VP, for the
above
information]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Upcoming
Satellite Operations
Mitch, AD0HJ, has decided to "go check on the tree"
in North Dakota.
He has also said he will be activating a bunch of
grids:
5/20 UTC DN96/97
5/21 UTC DN78/88
5/22 UTC
DN76/77
5/23 UTC DN86/87
5/24 UTC EN06/16
Details on his
Twitter page, @ad0hj
Ron, AD0DX, and Doug, N6UA, are making another run
at the elusive DL88
in Big Bend National Park, Texas. They tried this grid
back in March,
and due to the mud couldn’t get to the grid, so never ones to
quit, off
they go again. The tentative date is Sunday May 31, 2020. They will
be
using the K5Z call sign. More information is available at the K5Z
QRZ
Page.
Please submit any additions or corrections to ke0pbr (at)
gmail.com
[ANS thanks Paul Overnfor, KE0PBR, the *NEW* AMSAT rover page
manager(!)
for the above information. Welcome aboard,
Paul.]
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Want to fly the colors on your own grid expedition?
Get your
AMSAT car flag and other neat stuff
from our Zazzle
store!
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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ARISS
News
Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on contacts
between
amateurs operating in schools and allowing students to interact
with
astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station.
The
downlink frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz
worldwide.
Airdrie Space Science Club, Airdrie, AB, Canada, Multi-point
tele-
bridge via ZS6JON. The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be
NA1SS
and the scheduled astronaut is Chris Cassidy, KF5KDR. The contact
is
go for Friday 2020-05-15 15:10:28 UTC with 55 degrees over
South
Africa.
ARISS is very aware of the impact that COVID-19 is
having on schools
and the public in general. As such, we may have last minute
cancella-
tions or postponements of school contacts. As always, ARISS will
try
to provide everyone with near-real-time updates at the ARISS
webpage:
https://www.ariss.org/
[ANS thanks
Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, one of the ARISS operation team men-
tors 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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Hamfests,
Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
Want to see AMSAT in action
or learn more about amateur radio in space?
AMSAT Ambassadors provide
presentations, demonstrate communicating
through amateur satellites, and host
information tables at club meet-
ings, hamfests, conventions, maker faires,
and other events.
Due to COVID-19, many hamfest and events around the
United States have
been cancelled or postponed. While we make every effort
to ensure the
information contained below is correct, there may be some that
we
missed. We wish all of you safekeeping and hope to be at a hamfest
near
you soon.
Current schedule:
No scheduled events
The
following events scheduled to have an AMSAT presence have
been
CANCELED:
May 8-9, 2020 Prescott Hamfest, Prescott, AZ
May
15-17, Hamvention, Xenia, OH
June 12-13, 2020, Ham-Com, Plano,
TX
A copy of the AMSAT hamfest brochure is available for download
from:
https://bit.ly/2ygVFmV 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]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Satellite
Shorts From All Over
+ Virgin Orbit tweets that it is celebrating a big
win this week after
the successful completion of a wet dress rehearsal with
LauncherOne
just in time for #NationalSpaceDay! Wet dress rehearsals with
all
commodities loaded is one of the last major events before launch.
(ANS thanks @Virgin_Orbit for the above information)
+ A new version of
the North American Overlay Mapper program: v4.0.0.0
has been released for
Windows 7 and 10, with many new features. The
'NAOMI' program can import
ADIF logs, Cabrillo logs, and a variety
of lists, and then georeference
them from the latest FCC and ISED
databases, and then plot North American
QSOs, Grid Locators, and
Counties, onto 47 maps at 1:2,000,000 scale, 2
North American over-
view maps at 1:20,000,000 scale, a zoomable Online Map
with a choice
of map-providers, a full-screen World Map, and a Great Circle
Map
with a choice of 16 different backgrounds. You can edit logs,
check
for errors, parse for counties, export data in different
formats,
search and browse the databases, overlay a variety of lists,
export
the maps for use in other applications, or to share online. NAOMI
is
available at: https://www.mapability.com/ei8ic/naomi/index.php
(ANS thanks Southgate ARC for the above information)
+ NASA will pay a
staggering $146 million for each SLS rocket engine,
with 4 needed per SLS
flight. These Space Shuttle main engines were
intended to be reused, but
SLS will throw them away. Other things
you could buy for $146 million: two
basic Atlas V rocket launches,
three Falcon 9 launches, or a fully
expendable Falcon Heavy launch,
with 2/3 the lift capacity at 1/20th the
cost.
(ANS thanks The Orbital Index for the above information)
+ A
study has found that all 1,078 commercially-launched smallsats in
the last
five years experienced delays, with a median delay of 128
days. The largest
delay categories: 11% of delays were administra-
tive, 13% were ISS
manifest changes (for ISS-deployed sats), 20%
were due to delays in launch
vehicle development, and 40% were due
to primary payload delays affecting
their rideshares. Full report
at https://bit.ly/3fuw1Mz
(ANS thanks The
Orbital Index for the above information)
+ A satellite built by Air Force
Academy cadets will launch into space
May 16 aboard the X-37B, Orbital Test
Vehicle sponsored by the De-
partment of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities
Office and built by
Boeing. This is the first time a satellite built and
designed by ca-
dets will catch a ride into space aboard the X-37B.
FalconSAT-8 will
carry five experimental payloads, and members of the Cadet
Space
Operations Squadron will operate it. There was no mention of
amateur
radio connected with this satellite, nor has there been a
request
for IARU frequency coordination in the amateur radio satellite
ser-
vice, although previous FalconSats have had amateur radio
payloads.
(ANS thanks U.S. Air Force Academy for the above
information)
+ When a new crew member arrives on the International Space
Sta-
tion, the population of humans living in space changes, of
course.
But so, too, does the population of microbes. As we have all
learned
in this time of Covid-19, countless types of microorganisms
inhabit
our bodies, inside and out, and when an astronaut arrives on
the
station, they bring their specific collection of microbial "hitch-
hikers" with them. A new study shows that the microorganisms living
on
surfaces inside the space station so closely resembled those on
an
astronaut's skin that scientists could tell when this new crew
member
arrived and departed, just by looking at the microbes left
behind. Many of
the microorganisms living in and around us are harm-
less or even essential
for good health, but some can cause disease
or damage structures in built
environments. https://bit.ly/3dlEobi
(ANS thanks spacedaily.com for the above
information)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
/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, Mark D. Johns, K0JM
k0jm at amsat dot
org
_______________________________________________
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this
open forum available
to all interested persons worldwide without requiring
membership. Opinions expressed
are solely those of the author, and do not
reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA.
Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to
support the amateur satellite program!
Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
