XPost: rec.radio.info

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-330

In this edition:

* Happy 10th Birthday FUNcube-1 (AO-73)
* AMSAT Servers Back In Service After Brief Outage
* HERON Mk. II Reaches Orbit
* Starship Flies Higher
* ITU RS-23 Adopts Resolution for Space Spectrum
* Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution for November 24
* ARISS News
* Upcoming Satellite Operations
* Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
* Satellite Shorts From All Over

The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and information 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 communicating 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: https://mailman.amsat.org/postorius/lists/ans.amsat.org/

ANS-330 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

To: All RADIO AMATEURS

From: Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation

712 H Street NE, Suite 1653
Washington, DC 20002

DATE 2023 Nov 26


Happy 10th Birthday FUNcube-1 (AO-73)

November 21, 2023, marks the tenth birthday of our very first CubeSat
mission, FUNcube-1 (AO-73).

A very short time after the launch from Yasny in Russia and within a few minutes from deployment, the very first frame of data from the low power transmitter on board, was detected and decoded by ZS1LS in South Africa. He
was able to relay the data over the internet from his Dashboard to the Data Warehouse and the numbers, appeared, as if by magic, at the launch party
being held at the RSGB National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park.

After a very brief check out, the FUNcube team were able to switch the transmitter to full power, again at the very first attempt, and were quite amazed at the strength of the signal from the 300mW transmitter on 145.935
MHz. The transponder was then switched on and successfully tested, the
first contact was between G6LVB and M5AKA who were both operating from the Bletchley Park car park.

The team finished the day with a request to AMSAT-NA for an Oscar number
and were delighted to receive the AO73 Oscar 73 designation!

Since then, FUNcube-1, with a launch mass of less than 1kg, has operated continuously with only a very few interruptions. In excess of 53,500
orbits, 1.3 billion miles travelled, 61 million telemetry data packets transmitted, and with more than 10.9 million unique data packets downloaded
and stored in the Data Warehouse.

The FUNcube team still receive many requests for Fitter message uploads for school events…please contact us by email to operations@funcube.org.
uk
giving us at least two weeks notice.

The FUNcube team continue to be very grateful to all the many stations
around the world that continue to upload the telemetry that they receive to
our Data Warehouse. They really need this data to provide a continuous
resource for educational outreach.

FUNcube Data Warehouse and the Dashboard software https://funcube.org.uk/working-documents/funcube-telemetry-dashboard/

FUNcube email group https://groups.io/g/FUNcube

FUNcube Website http://www.funcube.org.uk/

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]


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The 2023 AMSAT President's Club coins are here now!
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its launch
on June 16, 1983, this year's coin features
an image of AMSAT-OSCAR 10.
Join the AMSAT President's Club today and help
Keep Amateur Radio in Space! https://www.amsat.org/join-the-amsat-presidents-club/
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AMSAT Servers Back In Service After Brief Outage

At approximately 21:04 UTC Tuesday November 21, our vendor Linode detected
a failing disk on the hardware that runs our web, telemetry, source code control and Echolink servers and began to effect emergency data protection operations. AMSAT's Engineering department is clearly working hard,
because within 10 minutes they alerted the AMSAT IT department that they
were having trouble accessing the server that holds the source code for our satellite projects.

Meanwhile Linode proceeded to "evacuate" our servers from the failing
hardware, and migrated them to new hardware.

All services were restored by approximately 21:20 UTC and the servers
appear to be happily settling in to their new home.

There is no sign of any data loss, but as always if you see anything out of
the ordinary please write webmaster@amsat.org

[ANS thanks Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, of the AMSAT IT Team 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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HERON Mk. II Reaches Orbit

The University of Toronto Aerospace Team (UTAT) Space Systems’ HERO
N Mk. II
satellite lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, aboard
a Falcon 9 rocket of the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission.

As a rideshare mission to space, the Transporter-9 delivered HERON Mk. II
—
alongside 89 other small satellites — to an orbit approximately 540 kilometres above Earth’s surface. Marking the culmination of nearly
a
decade of work by student Space Systems engineers, the HERON Mk. IIâ€
™s path
to the launch pad was one of dedication and perseverance.

The UTAT are a team composed primarily of engineering students that designs
and builds small satellites known as CubeSats. Team’s first satelli
te,
HERON Mk. I — short for Human Experiment Relay On Nanosatellite â
€” was a
CubeSat developed from 2014–2016. For various reasons, the project
did not
end in a launch opportunity, and so HERON Mk. I was retired.

Since our team was performing work that required members to be on campus,
the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our original spacecraft assembly plans.

Any organization wishing to send a satellite into space and communicate
with it via radio waves first needs to obtain the appropriate radio
frequency (RF) licenses from Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada. Unfortunately, the process of obtaining these licenses for the
HERON Mk. II satellite took significantly longer than expected and delayed
the launch. Because of the delay, the team was forced to abandon the
original biological mission.

Therefore, the team decided to shift the primary focus of the HERON Mk. II mission toward validating UTAT Space Systems’ RF communications
capabilities and providing amateur radio and satellite operations
experience to our members.

While waiting for the frequency licenses to be issued, a group of our
teammates began designing an amateur ultra-high frequency (UHF) ground
station. This is the apparatus that allows us to communicate with HERON Mk.
II from the ground, via radio waves at a frequency of 437.12 megahertz. Now fully operational, the ground station currently resides on the sixth-floor
roof of the Bahen Centre for Information Technology.

In September, a few team members travelled to Spaceflight’s facilit
ies in
Bellevue, Washington, where they placed HERON Mk. II inside its deployer
that would later be mounted inside the Falcon 9 rocket for the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission.

Once the Falcon 9 rocket reached its intended orbit in space, HERON Mk. II
was ejected from the rocket at 3:04 pm EST, and soon deployed its UHF
antenna. The UHF antenna plays a crucial role in preventing any
electromagnetic interference with the other satellites, which might
otherwise distort the signals sent between HERON Mk. II and the ground
station.

During the initial commissioning period, we will be actively trying to establish the first communications via the ground station. Afterward, HERON
Mk. II will begin a year of regular operations during which the team will regularly monitor the satellite’s health.

The lessons learned from mission operations and monitoring the satelliteâ
€™s
health will inform the development of future satellite missions undertaken
by UTAT Space Systems.

With the launch of HERON Mk. II, UTAT Space Systems has lowered the barrier
to entry for space programs even further by becoming the first organization
in Canada to receive the entirety of its satellite development funding from
a student levy. This marks yet another paradigm shift in the industry, demonstrating that students are capable of sourcing their own space mission funding, rather than solely relying on government grants or commercial sponsorships.

From an educational perspective, the HERON Mk. II mission will enable team members to learn more about satellite operations and amateur radio and to

gain knowledge that will carry forward to UTAT Space Systems’ futur
e
missions.

[ANS thanks The Varsity, student newspaper of the University of Toronto,
for the above information]

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