Happy 12th Birthday to AO-73 (FUNcube-1)
/AO-73 celebrated its 12th birthday on 21 November 2025. The satellite is still operating well in full-time transponder mode.
On 21 November 2013, FUNcube-1 (AO-73) was launched from the Yasny launch base located in the Orenburg Region, Russia, on a Dnepr Launch Vehicle into a 600 km, 97.8º inclination sun-synchronous orbit. In this orbit, the satellite passes over the British Isles and Europe approximately 3 times in the morning, and 3 times in the evening, every day, perhaps allowing the morning passes to be used for educational purposes and the evening passes for Amateur Radio communications.
FUNcube carries a UHF to VHF linear transponder that has 300 mW PEP output and which can be used by Radio Amateurs worldwide for SSB and CW communications.
Communication subsystem:
145.935 MHz BPSK Telemetry 30/300 mW
Inverting SSB/CW transponder 300 mW
435.150 – 435.130 MHz Uplink
145.950 – 145.970 MHz Downlink
The passband may be up to 15 kHz higher depending on on-board temperatures. Low temperatures give higher frequencies
As of writing, ground stations from around the world have collected 11,631,536 frames of telemetry throughout the satellite’s life. The satellite’s recently received telemetry values can be found on AMSAT-UK’s Data Warehouse - http://data.amsat-uk.org/ui/fc1-fm.
