The GOMX-2 and RACE CubeSats were among more than 2 dozen satellites that were lost after an unmanned Orbital Space Sciences (OSC) Antares 130 vehicle exploded spectacularly shortly after launch at 2222 UTC on Tuesday, October 28, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Both satellite packages carried payloads that operated on Amateur Radio freque…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
AMSAT-NA has announced a third-quarter 2015 launch opportunity for its Fox-1C CubeSat and has kicked off a fun drive to cover the costs of putting the Amateur Radio satellite into space. AMSAT reports that it has teamed with Spaceflight Inc for integration and launch services utilizing Spaceflight’s SHERPA system to put Fox-1C into a sun-synchronous orbit. Spaceflight describes SHERPA as an “in…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
The FUNcube-3 payload has reached orbit, and its 145.815 MHz beacon signal has been copied. FUNcube-3 is a transponder-only payload on the QB50 precursor CubeSat, QB50P1, which launched on June 19 from Russia. FUNcube-3 carries an inverting 400 mW SSB/CW transponder, with an uplink passband of 435.035-435.065 MHz (LSB) and a downlink passband of 145.935-145.965 MHz (USB).
The QB50P1 and QB50P2 p…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
Several CubeSats carrying Amateur Radio payloads are set to launch during June. These include two FUNcube projects.
FUNcube-3, the transponder-only payload on the QB50 precursor CubeSat, QB50P1, is scheduled for launch on June 19 from Russia, at a tentative launch time of 1911 UTC. Initial beacon signals from the main transceiver are expected to be AX.25 1200 bps BPSK packets on 145.815 MHz. FUN…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
AMSAT-NA has announced that its Fox-1 CubeSat likely will not launch until the summer of 2015, “due to governmental priorities.” The satellite was set to head into orbit in December 2014. Fox-1 is on the flight manifest for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites Mission 12 (ELaNa-12). The first phase of Fox satellites are 1-Unit CubeSats that will include an analog FM voice repeater that w…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
CQ Communications Inc has announced plans to realign its publications lineup and to launch a new online supplement to its flagship magazine, CQ Amateur Radio.
“The hobby radio market is changing,” said CQ Communications President and Publisher Dick Ross, K2MGA, “and we are changing what we do and how we do it in order to continue providing leadership to all segments of the radio hobby.”
Effective…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
NASA has awarded its first CubeSat-class launch services contract. It has selected Generation Orbit Launch Services Inc of Atlanta to provide a CubeSat-class launch via a NASA Launch Services Enabling eXploration and Technology (NEXT)contract. The launch will take place in 2016 from Jacksonville, Florida.
NEXT is an element of a strategic initiative led by NASA’s Launch Services Program that is …
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) developer Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, is looking for someone who will build a linear satellite transponder for PSK31.
“If someone will build a linear PSK31 transponder, I have a launch opportunity in 9 months,” Bruninga said in a posting to the AMSAT Bulletin Board. “All it needs to be is a PSK31 linear receiver on 28.120 MHz (3 kHz bandwidth) with AGC coupled …
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
Two CubeSats, carrying SSB/CW and FM voice transponders are scheduled to be launched into a 600 km orbit during the first half of 2014. That news came during the QB50 Project presentation at the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium earlier this summer.
The QB50 project team has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with AMSAT-UK, AMSAT-Francophone and AMSAT-NL to enable two Amateur Radio payl…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
The Baltic nation of Lithuania is hoping that its first two satellites will be launched later this year from the International Space Station (ISS). The nanosatellites carrying Amateur Radio payloads could be among the CubeSats sent by payload handler NanoRacks LLC to the ISS on the SpaceX CRS-3 mission in November 2013. The Kaunas University of Technology is developing LituanicaSAT-1, while the…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources