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145.825 MHz APRS Cubesats från ISS

Under augusti 2018 finns det möjlighet att tre satelliter med APRS släpps ut från ISS. De kommer att sända på 145.815 MHz och bör bli lätta att höra:

The June 29, 2018 SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the Dragon cargo
capsule included cubesats of the BIRDS-2 satellite constellation.
All cubesats in the BIRDS-2 constellation MAYA-1, BHUTAN-1 and
UiTMSAT-1 have identical designs and utilize the same radio
frequencies. While independently made, the operation and control
of the three cubesats will be shared by the three teams after
they are released from the ISS early in August. They will be
operational for six months.

“The three will form a constellation, orbiting the earth from
different places. This will provide the countries more opportun-
ities to make measurements and run experiments, than just with
using one cubesat,” explained Joel Joseph Marciano Jr., manager
of the PHL-Microsat program in the Philippines.

The primary mission of BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation is to
provide digital message relay service to the amateur radio
community by means of an APRS digipeater onboard. The APRS
digipeater onboard BIRDS-2 CubeSats will use 145.825 MHz for
both receive and transmit which isa standard configurations
used by other satellites such as ARISS and LAPAN-A2.

Another mission of the BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation is to
demonstrate a store-and-forward (S&F) system. In this mission,
their goal is to investigate technical challenges through ex-
periments on appropriate data format, multiple access scheme,
file-handling protocol while complying with limited operational
time and power constraints.

The BIRDS-2 CubeSat S&F system will collect data from remote
ground sensors, store them onboard and download them to the
different BIRDS-2 ground stations network.

Additional experiments will use the BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation
to enhance research and experiment in the fields of single latch-up
event detection, magnetic field measurements using a COTS aniso-
tropic magnetometer, and flight testing of a COTS GPS chip which
can be used for future CubeSat missions if proven effective. Stu-
dents will also explore a passive attitude stabilization mechanism
consisting of magnets and hysteresis dampers for proper orientation
of camera on a CubeSat. All measurements and image data will be
shared with the public on BIRDS-2 project website.

Moveover, BIRDS-2 CubeSat constellation will expand amateur radio
communication experiment on the operation of CubeSat constellation
via a network of UHF/VHF amateur radio ground stations (started
in the BIRDS-1 CubeSat constellation project). BIRDS-2 hopes to
promote awareness of amateur radio communication and amateur
satellites among the general public and students, especially in
the participating nations of BIRDS-2 Project: Bhutan, Malaysia,
Philippines, and Japan.

The IARU has coordinated 437.375 MHz CW beacon for a downlink and
145.825 MHz for the APRS experiment.

Philippine news coverage of MAYA-1 can be accessed at:
https://tinyurl.com/ANS189-MAYA-1
http://tinyurl.com/ANS-BIRDS2-cubesats
Visit the BIRDS-2 website at: http://birds2.birds-project.com/

[ANS thanks the BIRDS-2 Project, Kyushu Institute of Technology and
the IARU for the above information]

By SM0TGU

Webmaster and member of the AMSAT-SM steering group.

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