Es’hail-2 Geostationary Satellite Launched

Two new satellites have been launched on 19th November 2018 from Spaceflight’s SSO-A SmallSat Express mission.

The Launch of Fox-1Cliff satellite took place from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. In addition to carrying experiments on board from Vanderbilt and Penn State universities, the Fox-1Cliff has the Fox-1 U/V FM repeater and AMSAT’s L-Band downshifter. There is also a VGA camera provided by Virginia Tech that will provide images at a resolution of 640 x 480, much higher than that aboard the AO-92.

Anticipation is high for the Qatar Satellite Company’s Es’hail-2 geostationery satellite that is carrying two AMSAT transponders that was launched by SpaceX on 15th November 2018.

According to AMSAT-DL, the satellite will first complete several orbital maneuvers, then enter a commissioning phase before ending up in geostationary orbit. While hams will understandably be enthusiastic about giving reception reports, AMSAT-DL is requesting reports be made only after the official release so as not to get in the way of the commissioning phase. Think of it as a “repeater in the sky” for some regions where it will almost constantly be visible, such as Africa and Europe. It is said to have the potential to link amateurs from Thailand to Brazil. The satellite will be carrying two transponders for amateur radio, operating in the 2400 MHz and 10450 MHz bands.

More Information - https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/eshail-2/

Microsatellite and CubeSat launch Nov 19

The Spaceflight SSO-A launch on a Falcon 9 rocket is currently expected at 18:32 UTC on 19th November 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

It is planned to launch 15 microsatellites and 56 CubeSats on this mission. Several of those satellites will have amateur radio payloads.

Full details on this complex launch, including the full list of satellites to be deployed - https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/content/-/article/sso-a

AMSAT Bulletin Board (AMSAT-BB) - https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

Information on IARU coordinated satellite frequencies -
http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/

UKube-1 Falls Silent

UKube-1, the UK Space Agency’s first CubeSat, was launched into space in July 2014. It completed its successful nominal mission fourteen month later in September 2015

Since that date, for the past three years, the FUNcube based payload has continued to provide a transponder for use by radio amateurs and, additionally, 30+ channels of real time telemetry for STEM outreach and for use by schools and colleges. These downlinks have operated continuously on the 145 MHz band and more than 450 stations have supported this ongoing activity. They have uplinked the telemetry data to the FUNcube Data Warehouse where it is stored and available for research.

Just before midnight (UTC) on Thursday 18th October, the Warehouse received a data frame from KB6LTY, Christy Hunter in California. This is the last record of signals being received from the spacecraft and since that date, careful observations have failed to detect any signals from either of the transmitters carried by the spacecraft.

An early analysis of the last telemetry received has not shown any obvious anomalies, but this work continues.

Although it is obviously sad for both the amateur and educational worlds to lose such a valuable resource, both AO73-FUNcube 1 and EO88-Nayif 1 continue to operate nominally and JY1SAT and ESEO are expected to launch before the end of 2018.

UKube-1 - https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/communications/ukube-1/