Update: The launch date has changed. Now the satellites will be launch at the 19th and 20th of November 2013.
With al the attention going towards the Dnepr launch on November 21 we would almost forget that there are a couple of Cubesats onboard the ISS that will be launched also. The launch is planned for November 25. The following satellites will be deployed.
- Pico Dragon, developed by the Việtnam National Satellite Center (VNSC), University of Tokyo and IHI aerospace. A CW beacon at 437.250 MHz and 1200 bps AFSK AX.25 telemetry on 437.365 MHz.
- ArduSat-1 developed by NanoSatisfi. 437.325 MHz 9k6 MSK CCSDS downlink.
- ArduSat-X developed by NanoSatisfi. 437.345 MHz 9k6 MSK CCSDS downlink.
- TechEdSat-3 developed by interns at the NASA Ames Research Center. 437.465 MHz 1200 bps packet radio beacon transmitting 1 watt to 1/4 wave monopole. It plans to test an Iridium Satphone modem and has a deployment mechanism to de-orbit in 10 days.
These satellites arrived Aug 9, 2013 at the International Space Station’s and the Canadarm2 grapples the unpiloted Japanese “Kounotori” H2 Transfer Vehicle-4 (HTV-4) as it approaches the station, carrying ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-X among 3.6 tons of science experiments.
| November 19, 2013 ISS Launch | ||||
| Satellite | Uplink | Downlink | Beacon | Mode |
| ArduSat-1 | 437.325 | 9k6 MSK | ||
| ArduSat-X | 437.345 | 9k6 MSK | ||
| PicoDragon | 437.365 | 437.250 | 1k2 AFSK, AX.25, CW | |
| November 20, 2013 ISS Launch | ||||
| Satellite | Uplink | Downlink | Beacon | Mode |
| TechEdSat-3 | 437.465 | 437.465 | 1k2 AFSK, AX.25 | |
ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-X along with Pico Dragon from Vietnam were deployed from the International Space Station at 1218 UTC on Tuesday, November 19.
The ArduSat team have released the following information: If you’re a radio amateur and would like to help out the ArduSat team, you can listen for our Morse beacons and send them to us! This beacon gives us important information – like battery voltage and lets us know that the satellites are still alive!
Submitting a beacon packet: You can submit a beacon as plain text to nanosatisfi[at]gmail.com – be sure to put the word “packet” in the subject line so that we can parse it quickly.