September has been an unusually eventful month on the IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel’s status pages, hosted by AMSAT-UK at https://iaru.amsat-uk.org/index.php. In addition to the UNNE-1B coordination reported above, the panel completed four coordinations, declined four requests in a single day, and posted six new applications during the month.
Newly Coordinated (September 7)
+ FramSat-1.5 – Orbit NTNU, Norway. ANS-235 reported that the panel had declined coordination for this 1U CubeSat on August 17. The request now appears on the list of completed coordinations, with a downlink on 435.060 MHz coordinated for its 2FSK 9k6 telemetry. Built by the student organization at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, FramSat-1.5 is planning an Isar Aerospace launch from Andoya in Q4 2026, following its predecessor FramSat-1, which reached orbit on Isar’s “Onward and Upward” mission on September 5.
+ Qubesat-2 – Space Technologies at Cal, University of California, Berkeley. A 2U CubeSat carrying a store-and-forward digipeater that will accept packets of amateurs’ own data and retransmit them at a time of the operator’s choosing, with the open-source TinyGS ground station network used for broad accessibility. Its science payload is a proof-of-concept quantum gyroscope using nitrogen-vacancy center diamonds. The team proposed a UHF LoRa downlink at 1025 baud, with launch arranged through Voyager.
+ UTNH-SAJILO-SAT (SanoSat-3) – AMSAT Nepal. The follow-on to SanoSat-1 (NO-116) and SanoSat-2 carries an amateur digipeater for short messages, a 5-megapixel camera downlinking SSDV images via GFSK, a Morse code identification beacon, and a magnetorquer-based detumbling system, with telemetry openly available through SatNOGS.
+ Solar Flare and Ionosphere Explorer (SoFIE) – Saint Francis University, Pennsylvania. A 3U CubeSat that will observe HF radio bursts from the Sun while collecting ground-based transmissions with a broadband 3-30 MHz receiver, in collaboration with the University of Scranton’s HamSCI initiative, with a 9k6 BPSK AX.25 UHF downlink and a 1 Mbps S-band downlink.
Coordination Declined (September 17)
Four requests were declined on the same day, in each case with the panel’s reasoning noted on the request:
+ AlMunther – Bahrain Space Agency. A 3U CubeSat carrying a camera system, an in-house avionics board with encryption and AI image-processing experiments, and a beacon transmitting the Bahraini national anthem and a quote from the King of Bahrain for amateurs to collect. The satellite was launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-14 mission in March 2025; coordination was not requested until July of that year.
+ MOI-1 – K J Somaiya Institute of Technology, India. A 6U CubeSat intended to provide AI computation infrastructure in space, with an “OrbitRadio” amateur-band downlink broadcasting telemetry and user-uploaded messages. The panel declined coordination as a commercial project.
+ GenexSat – Genex Space (Space Shaala Pvt. Ltd.), India. A 4P PocketQube proposing a LoRa digipeater and a lab-on-chip biological experiment. The panel declined coordination as a commercial project.
+ MRZN – Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras. A 1U CubeSat measuring hydrometeorological variables to provide flood early warnings for Central American river basins, with SSTV images promised for amateurs in the summer months. The panel declined coordination as an Earth exploration mission.
New Applications
+ SCALAR – Washington University in St. Louis (applied September 6). The student club’s first satellite mission, a 1U CubeSat demonstrating three-axis attitude control using custom magnetorquers and torque rods, with members obtaining amateur licenses and building their own ground station along the way.
+ Nyansat – Oakwood School, California (applied September 13). A 2U CubeSat designed, built, and operated by high school students, carrying acoustic structural measurement, radio-based orbit determination, distributed ledger, embedded Ethernet, imaging, and student artwork payloads, plus a materials science experiment that students at approximately 30 schools will follow with control observations. The team proposes a UHF GFSK downlink and a NASA launch to the ISS in June 2027. The responsible operator is Michael Lyle, AE6XM.
+ UTNH-Sat – Universidad Tecnologica Nacional Regional Haedo, Argentina (applied September 15). LoRa telemetry and a CW beacon on 436.850 MHz, an automatic LoRa ping-response service that returns the requesting station’s callsign, and an onboard radiation counter for educational study of the space environment. The team is planning a SpaceX launch from Vandenberg in October 2026. The responsible operator is Gustavo Carpignano, LW2DTZ.
+ RSP-P00 – Rymansat PocketQube, Japan (applied September 16). A 1P PocketQube intended to demonstrate an ultra-small, rapidly iterated satellite platform whose hardware designs and protocols will be open-sourced to the amateur community. The satellite will transmit telemetry, CODEC2 digital voice (FreeDV 2400B), and SSDV images, and will offer an AX.25 echo-back practice mode for newcomers and an APRS repeater, with a downlink combining CW, GMSK at up to 19k2, AFSK, and ME-2FSK. A SpaceX launch from Vandenberg is planned for early 2028. The responsible operator is Takafumi Shimamura, JI1YSC.
+ Space-Ranger 1 and Space-Ranger 2 – Beihang University, China (applied September 22). A pair of 28 kg microsatellites developed from winning projects of the second Space Universities CubeSat Challenge, each carrying an optical camera, a deployable membrane demonstration, a neutron detector, and electric propulsion. Telemetry is to be open to radio amateurs worldwide upon application for authorization, with a UHF BPSK downlink at 4096 bps and an S-band QPSK downlink at 200 kbps proposed. Launch from Jiuquan is planned for January 2027.
Finally, the Slipper2Sat-2 entry from Antarikchya Pratisthan Nepal, reported as a new application in ANS-214, no longer appears on the panel’s status pages.
Developers planning a mission are reminded to request coordination as early in the design process as possible – and, as this month’s declines illustrate, well before launch.
[ANS thanks the IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Panel and AMSAT-UK for the above information]