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[jamsat-news:3142] ANS-027 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-027
ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North
America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS reports on the
activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share
an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicat-
ing through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:
ans-editor at amsat.org
In this edition:
* AMSAT-NA Website Outage
* K6GSJ Donates OSCAR-1 Historical Artifacts to ARRL Archives
* Open Source Satellite OSSI CubeSat Launch in April 2013
* IARU Satellite Coordination Board Says DOVE-1 Will Not Use 145.825
* Vote for Your Favorite Photos From Japan's PRISM Satellite
* February 14 PSLV-C20 Launch Planned by India
* Surrey Satellite Selected to Evaluate Small Satellites for GPS
* NASA History Program Office Summer 2013 Internships
* Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-027.01
ANS-027 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 027.01
From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD.
January 27, 2013
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-027.01
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AMSAT-NA Website Outage
On or about 20 January 2013, AMSAT-NA's main web site www.amsat.org
was compromised by an attacker, with the contents of the supporting
database, including non-public information, posted on other publicly
available web sites.
It is likely that the attacker gained enough access to the site to
post arbitrary and possibly illegal content, so out of an abundance
of caution the main site was shut down.
Neither the AMSAT store nor the Fox project web site were affected
by this breach. The AMSAT Store is still open for business, and can
be reached directly at http://store.amsat.org/catalog/
Mail services remain operational.
The main site was developed roughly 10 years ago by a AMSAT volun-
teers under a more benign Internet threat environment. The team that
built that site is no longer associated with AMSAT, so work has been
underway over the last several months to move to a modern, maintain-
able, secure infrastructure. This recent breach will accelerate that
activity.
In the interim, www.amsat.org will have limited content.
[ANS thanks AMSAT's User Services Team for the above information]
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K6GSJ Donates OSCAR-1 Historical Artifacts to ARRL Archives
The February 2013 QST Magazine carries a story on page 71 noting
the donation of OSCAR-1 historical artifacts to the ARRL Histori-
cal Collections. Lance Ginner, K6GSJ, one of OSCAR-1's builders,
donated documents, test data, reception reports, and media to pre-
serve the pioneering work of Project OSCAR.
The archive also contains a vintage OSCAR Locator and the QST Cover
Plaque Award presented to Edgar Hilton, W6VKP for his article on
locating OSCAR.
The article notes the work by ARRL Museum Volunteer Custodians
Michael Marinaro, WN1M, and Jonathan Allen, K2KKH, to catalog and
preserve these materials for future historians.
Visitors to the ARRL Laboratory's Vintage Equipment Exhibit in
Newington, CT can see and hear an operational prototype of OSCAR-1
transmitting its "HI" beacon on 145.080 MHz.
[ANS thanks the ARRL for the above information]
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Open Source Satellite OSSI CubeSat Launch in April 2013
OSSI-1, the Open Source Satellite Initiative satellite, developed by
Hojun Song DS1SBO, is planned to launch in the 2nd quarter of 2013
into a 575 km 63° inclination orbit on a Soyuz-2-1b rocket from the
Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan. The 1U cubesat is 100% based
on COTS components. The main payload, the Bion-M1 satellite, antici-
pates a planned launch date of April, 2013.
Reports say OSSI-1 will have a beacon in the 145 MHz band, a data
communications transceiver in the 435 MHz band although actual opera-
ting frequencies have yet to be published. The data communications
transceiver is reported to be using an open protocol, details have
not been released yet.
OSSI-1 also carries a 44 watt LED optical beacon to flash Morse Code
messages to observers on Earth.
The development of the satellite has been documented on the Open
Source Satellite Initiative Blog http://opensat.cc/blog/ and the
Wiki http://opensat.cc/wiki/
Other cubesats on this launch will include:
+ SOMP - downlink on 437.485 MHz including CW, 1k2 and 9k6 BPSK,
AX25 FSK, and AO40 standard 400bit/s BPSK.
+ BEESAT 2 - 4k8 GMSK on 435.950 MHz
+ BEESAT 3 - 4k8 GMSK on 435.950 MHz
+ Dove-2 - Commercial technology demonstration mission.
+ Bion-M1 - Research satellite collaboration between NASA and the
Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems. The mission
will launch an unmanned automated spacecraft carrying
a biological payload into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The
rodents on the Bion-M1 spacecraft will be exposed to
spaceflight conditions for approximately one month.
AMSAT-UK published photos and additional news at:
http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=12231
[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]
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IARU Satellite Coordination Board Says DOVE-1 Will Not Use 145.825
Dove-1, a technology development experiment to be launched to Low
Earth Orbit on the inaugural launch of Antares in February, 2013
from Wallops Island, Virginia will no longer be using frequencies
in the amateur radio bands based on information posted on the IARU
satellite coordination web page for this mission.
The satellite had requested IARU coordination for a 1 watt transmit-
ter on 145.825 MHz to downlink a 1200 baud AFSK AX.25 beacon with
telemetry and health data.
The Wallops Launch also includes the PhoneSat cubesats into a plan-
ned 280 x 270km orbit at 51.6 deg inclination. Due to the extremely
low orbit these satellites will reenter the Earth's atmosphere after
approximately 2 weeks.
(See ANS-006 at http://amsat.org/pipermail/ans/2013/000681.html for
details of the PhoneSat mission.)
IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination web page can be found
at: http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/
[ANS thanks the IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Board for the
above information]
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Vote for Your Favorite Photos From Japan's PRISM Satellite
PRISM, a nano-satellite developed by Intelligent Space Systems Lab-
oratory, was launched on January 23rd 2009. It's mission is to take
pictures of the Earth from outer space. 35 photos taken by PRISM’s
Wide Angle Camera have been selected by the PRISM team and posted
at: http://www.smaster.jp/Sheet.aspx?SheetID=72633
Please take a look at the pictures and vote for your favorites.
Enter your choices in the check-box above each photo - multiple sel-
ections are allowed.
PRISM also carries an orbital store-and-forward message box open for
use by amateur radio operators. In PRISM's HAM Service FM packets
uplinked are stored and available for download on future passes.
Downlink Frequency: 437.425 MHz FM, AFSK 1200, AX.25, UI Frames
Beacon Freequency: 437.250 MHz
Call Sign: JQ1YZW
Full details of Amateur Radio access to PRISM is documented at:
http://www.space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/prism/en/HAMservice_info.aspx
http://www.space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/prism/en/HAMservice_rule.aspx
You will find a pull-down menu at the bottom of this web page.
Use the pull-down arrow to access "Agree" then click on the web
page button also labeled "Agree". This will bring you to another
web page revealing uplink frequency and message formats.
[ANS thanks Professor Nakasuka of the University of Tokyo and the
PRISM Team for the above information]
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February 14 PSLV-C20 Launch Planned by India
India's "The Hindu" newspaper reports that the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) has slated its first launch of the year PSLV-CA
(PSLV-C20) for February 14. This launch includes the SARAL ocean
study spacecraft and satellites carrying amateur radio payloads.
The payload includes:
+ SARAL - Ka-band radar altimeter operating at 35.75 GHz.
See: http://smsc.cnes.fr/SARAL/
+ NEOSSat Search for near-Earth asteroids and space debris.
+ Sapphire – Canadian Department of National Defence first
dedicated military satellite.
+ CanX-3a, BRITE (BRIght-star Target Explorer) – small satellite
designed to make photometric observations of bright stars in
order to study their variability.
+ TUGSat-1 - S-Band for telemetry downlinks and will have a 145 MHz
CW beacon.
+ AAUSat 3 – 1U cubesat developed and constructed by students from
Department of Electronic Systems at Aalborg University Denmark,
testbed for a pair of AIS receivers. The IARU Amateur Radio coor-
dinated frequency is 437.425 MHz using Viterbi and Reed Solomon
encoding.
+ Max Valier – Small satellite to encourage student experimentation.
IARU Amateur Radio coordinated frequencies are 145.860 MHz and
145.960 MHz.
Full details and links to the satellite team web pages are posted
on the AMSAT-UK web at: http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=12180
Read the Hindu article at: http://tinyurl.com/TheHindu-PSLV
(www.thehindu.com)
Zarya Launches and Orbital Operations Calendar
http://www.zarya.info/Calendar.php
[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK for the above information]
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NASA History Program Office Summer 2013 Internships
The NASA History Program Office is seeking undergraduate and grad-
uate students for summer 2013 internships. The History Program Of-
fice maintains archival materials to answer research questions from
NASA personnel, journalists, scholars, students at all levels and
others from around the world. The division also edits and publishes
several books and monographs each year. It maintains a large number
of websites on NASA history.
Students of all majors are welcome to apply. While detailed prior
knowledge of the aeronautics and space fields is not necessary, a
keen interest and some basic familiarity with these topics are need-
ed. Strong research, writing and editing skills are essential. Exper-
ience with computers, especially hypertext markup language, or HTML,
formatting, is a plus.
Intern projects are flexible. Typical projects include handling a
variety of information requests, editing historical manuscripts,
doing research and writing biographical sketches, updating and
creating websites, and identifying and captioning photos.
Applications for summer 2013 internships are due Feb. 4, 2013.
For more information, visit http://history.nasa.gov/interncall.htm.
If you have questions about this opportunity, please contact Bill
Barry at bill.barry@nasa.gov.
[ANS thanks NASA Education Express Message of Jan. 24, 2013 for the
above information]
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Surrey Satellite Selected to Evaluate Small Satellites for GPS
An article posted on the GPS Daily website says the US Air Force Re-
search Laboratory (AFRL) has selected Surrey Satellite Technology US
LLC (SST-US) to investigate cost reduction and augmentation of the
current GPS constellation through the application of the small sat-
ellite approach. (Full article at: http://tinyurl.com/Surrey-GPS)
SST-US will examine how constellations of smaller satellites could
improve the overall system performance and resilience, including
ways to deliver high-power signals and alternative architectures
for rapid commanding that could provide system capability improve-
ment.
Small satellites have become the focus of many institutional pro-
grams in recent years, as they have become ever more capable and
demonstrated their importance.
[ANS thanks GPSDaily.Com for the above information]
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Satellite Shorts From All Over
+ Free NASA Calendar in PDF format with imagery from the ISS is
posted at: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/716960main_iss_calendar_2013.pdf
+ An animation showing UKube-1 CubeSat on-orbit and its payload is
posted at: http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=12334. UKube-1 is slated to
launch in the 2nd/3rd quarter of 2013 on a Soyuz-2 along with
TechDemoSat-1. UKube-1 will carry a set of AMSAT-UK FUNcube boards
to provide an amateur radio 435/145 MHz linear transponder and a
1200 bps BPSK beacon for educational outreach.
+ Tom Doyle, W9KE has released 'Satellite Explorer', a Windows 8
app that runs on Intel based tablets, laptops and desktops as well
as Windows RT tablets like the Microsoft Surface. It is available
in the Windows Store - search for 'Satellite Explorer'. The app is
free but if you find it of value please contribute something to
your favorite AMSAT project. Watch a preview at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0-jPjpDoYs
(W9KE)
+ The 2013 SA AMSAT Space Symposium will be held at the Innovation
Hub in Pretoria on 18 May 2013. The theme of the conference is
"Space - a challenging Amateur Radio frontier". If you are plan-
ning to submit a paper please send in a brief synopsis of the pro-
posed paper by 31 January to saamsat@intekom.co.za. For more
information visit www.amsatsa.org.za.
+ Enjoy an excerpt from "An Astronaut's Guide to Space Etiquette" at:
http://www.space-travel.com/reports/An_Astronauts_Guide_999.html
Scroll down about halfway down the page. (Space-Travel.com)
+ AMSAT-NA congratulates Martha Saragovitz on her 35th anniversary
as our office manager in Silver Spring, Maryland. Please send her
your greetings and congratulations to martha@amsat.org!
+ Professor Sir Martin Sweeting G3YJO appeared on Monday's BBC
Radio 4 show For All Mankind in which Chris Riley examined the
enduring legacy of the Apollo moon missions. In the interview
Martin G3YJO mentions the first UOSAT's (OSCAR-9 and 11). You
can hear him at 08:52 into the recording which is at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pcqkk It is understood the
recording will be available until January 28.
+ The Australian Geographic website features an article on Austra-
lia’s first amateur satellite, Australis-OSCAR-5 which was launch-
ed on 23 January 1970. See: http://tinyurl.com/Australia-AO5
(www.australiangeographic.com.au)
+ SpaceMart.com posted an article, "Phoenix Rising: New Video Shows
Advances in Satellite Repurposing Program" at:
http://tinyurl.com/DARPA-Phoenix (SpaceMart.com) DARPA's Phoenix
program plans to repurpose retired satellites while they remain
in orbit. The article contains a link to an HD video simulation
posted by DARPA.
+ Thursday, January 31 at 8PM Eastern (UTC-5) will be the last Hudson
Valley Satcom Net until further notice. The radio link is via the
MBARC Repeater on 146.970 MHz and on Echolink on the N2EYH-L node.
(Stu, WA2BSS)
[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]
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/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the
President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining
donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi-
tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT
Office.
Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership
at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students
enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu-
dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status.
Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership
information. And with that, please keep in mind the young ham who
was practicing the violin in the living room while his father was
trying to read in the den. The family dog was lying in the den, and
as the screeching sounds of little Harold's violin reached his ears,
he began to howl loudly. The father listened to the dog and the vio-
lin as long as he could. Then he jumped up, slammed his paper to the
floor and yelled above the noise, "For Pete's sake, can't you play
something the dog doesn't know?!"
73,
This week's ANS Editor,
JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM
K9JKM at amsat dot org
_______________________________________________
Via the ANS mailing list courtesy of AMSAT-NA
http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/ans