60th Anniversary of Launch of First Ham Radio Satellite

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Groups like the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), an international confederation of ham radio operators, have been flying small private satellites for years, well before the first CubeSats flew in 2003.

“CubeSats actually started with AMSAT, but they didn’t get a lot of credit for it, unfortunately.”
— Former Lockheed satellite technician and ham radio enthusiast Lance Ginner K6GSJ tells Inverse.

Ginner would know. He was there at the very beginning, 60 years ago, for the design and launch of OSCAR 1, which was history-making in a few ways. It was:

  • The first smallsat

  • The first private, non-government spacecraft

  • The first spacecraft to hitch a ride on another launch

It took a while, entire professional lifetimes, but virtually everything that enabled the commercial small satellite industry of the 2020s was there in an embryonic form on a Vandenberg Air Force Base launch pad on 12th December 1961.

Media Report - https://www.inverse.com/science/60-oscar-1-presaged-the-cubesat-era

Wikipedia OSCAR-1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSCAR_1

AMSAT-HB has been Established

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AMSAT-HB has been Established

A new amateur radio satellite organization AMSAT-HB was formed in Switzerland on November 26, 2021

With QO-100, interest in amateur radio services via satellites has also risen sharply in Switzerland. But not only the geostationary satellite fascinate the radio amateurs: The ARISS project (space station ISS), low-flying satellites, tracking of scientific deep space missions, etc., are attracting more and more attention. More and more experiments are being carried out with SDR technology in these areas.

But the colleges and universities are also increasingly concerned with the topic and are looking for help from various radio amateurs in Switzerland. These and other radio amateurs were of the opinion that it was time to join forces in Switzerland. For this reason, the AMSAT-HB was founded on Friday, November 26th, 2021 in Nottwil / LU. The association has set itself the goal of promoting the amateur radio service via satellites in Switzerland, but also internationally.

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Oregon Student Satellite Expected to Launch Early Next Year

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After months and months of research, testing and development, the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is preparing to hand off Oregon’s first satellite destined for the stars.

Later this month, the interdisciplinary student group will deliver the satellite known as OreSat0 to Seattle’s Spaceflight Inc. who will integrate OreSat0 into its Sherpa(R) Orbital Transfer Vehicle. The propulsive vehicle will carry and deploy many small satellites to orbit after hitching a ride to space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to launch no earlier than January 2022.

OreSat0 is the first in a series of three satellites designed by the Portland State Aerospace Society and is just about the size of a tissue box. The satellite includes solar panels, batteries, a color camera and an amateur radio system.

More Information - https://www.pdx.edu/news/psu-students-prep-oregons-first-satellite-space-flight