World’s Smallest Moon Lander will Put Ham Radio Transmitter on the Moon

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World’s Smallest Moon Lander will Put Ham Radio Transmitter on the Moon

Japan’s OMOTENASHI, the world’s smallest moon lander, will have an X-band and UHF communication system, although it will not carry an amateur band transponder. OMOTENASHI is a 6U CubeSat set for launch via a NASA SLS rocket as early as February 2022. It will have a mission period of from 4 to 5 days. The name is an acronym for Outstanding Moon Exploration Technologies demonstrated by Nano Semi-Hard Impactor. Wataru Torii of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Ham Radio Club, JQ1ZVI, said radio amateurs can play a role in gathering data from the spacecraft.

The spacecraft is made up of two separable components, both having independent communication systems — an orbiting module and a surface probe. The orbiting module will take the surface probe to the moon. It will transmit beacon or digital telemetry data on UHF (437.31 MHz). The surface probe — the moon lander — will transmit digital telemetry or three-axis acceleration analog-wave with FM modulation on UHF (437.41 MHz). Transmitter power will be 1 W in both cases.

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Senator Blumenthal Supports Amateur Radio at Senate Confirmation Hearing

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Senator Blumenthal Supports Amateur Radio at Senate Confirmation Hearing

Senator Richard Blumenthal (CT) received an affirmative reply from FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel when he asked her to commit to providing his office “an update on the steps that the FCC is taking to support amateur radio operators.” The Senator posed the written question as part of Rosenworcel’s renomination hearing conducted by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

Blumenthal took note specifically that “Radio amateurs voluntarily provide an array of public services, especially emergency and disaster-related support communications when infrastructure has been destroyed by a hurricane or similar disaster. Their contributions in this area are regularly recognized by local and state authorities.”

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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