AMSATSA AFRICUBE Update

During a recent conference call, AMSATSA gave an update on AFRICUBE, with progress being made on all fronts.

The transponder was tested on the air and an actual contact was made through the transponder.

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP installed the transponder on the tower at his house and made a contact with Keith Laaks, ZS6TW. While it was only over a few kilometres distance, the importance of the contact was that there was no interference and the audio quality was good.

This past week Anton Janovsky, ZR6AIC has worked on the software and through a complicated link managed to upload and install newer software remotely. “Anton connected to my computer and took over the machine using TeamViewer and then connected via Wi-Fi to the transponder on my tower,” Hannes, ZS6BZP said. “In normal times we would have simply exchanged a memory stick, but in abnormal times one has to resort to unconventional ways of doing things”.

Further updates will be uploaded this weekend with more testing of the transponder. The next step is to open the testing to local radio amateurs. Full details will be announced on SARL News and on the AMSAT SA Web.

Full AfriCUBE Development - http://www.amsatsa.org.za

The review meeting was also updated with the other components of AfriCUBE. The space frame is complete, the PC boards for the solar panels have been designed and will be manufactured as soon as the lockdown is over. Work is continuing on the antenna and solar panel deployment and a further prototype will be manufactured as soon as South Africa returns to normal work. The electronic power supply unit is complete. A new interface between the Raspberry Pi and the processor has been designed and the circuit board laid out.

Amateur Radio Satellite Spreads Fight Coronavirus Message

Indonesia’s International Amateur Radio Union member-society ORARI reports the ham radio satellite LAPAN-A2 (IO-86) is being used to transmit a “fight coronavirus” message via APRS. The satellite’s text message is, “Stay Healthy, Stay at Home #LawanCorona (Fight Coronavirus).” Sonny Dwi Harsono, YD1SCC, a researcher the Center for Satellite Technology Development, has explained that including the APRS text message was a form of support for government policies on social distancing in Indonesia.

To date, the message has been received by dozens of ORARI members throughout Indonesia, Harsono said.

Eventually, he said, plans call for trying to distribute the message via IO-86 every 100 minutes under certain conditions. Technical details are being worked out. Harsono pointed out that government messages about COVID-19 could also be transmitted via the satellite.

ORARI - http://www.orari.or.id/

AMSAT GOLF-TEE Initiative Meets Major Milestone

AMSAT has reported that an array of GOLF-TEE (Greater Orbit Larger Footprint – Technology Evaluation Environment) satellite prototype boards transmitted telemetry for the first time on 14th January 2020.

“The boards are laid out on a bench as a ‘flat-sat,’ with interconnecting wires, bench power supplies, and a dummy load on the transmitter”

— AMSAT

The interconnected boards include an early radiation-tolerant internal housekeeping unit (IHU, i.e., computer) prototype; a control interface prototype, and a set of spare boards from HuskySat-1 that act as prototypes for the legacy IHU and legacy VHF/UHF RF components.

“Now that the development team has reached this point, it has RF to use as a basis for developing a GOLF-TEE decoder for FoxTelem, the ground telemetry receiver software. Thousands of hours of work by many AMSAT volunteers have gone into the hardware and software that got GOLF-TEE this far, with much work yet to be done before flight units are ready.”

— AMSAT

GOLF-TEE is designed as a low-Earth orbit testbed for technologies necessary for successful CubeSat missions to a wide variety of orbits, including medium- and high-Earth orbits.