The DNEPR launch was/is a success.

The launch as you can see in this Youtube movie below was a success, the launch took place at 07:10 UTC from the Dombarovskiy facility.

Just a couple of minutes after the launch signals where received from FUNcube-1, these came from Amateur Radio Stations in South Africa and they filled the FUNcube-1 data warehouse for the first time.

My first pass was at 08:46 UTC and I had to make up my mind on with cubesats to track. I finally choose for monitor and record a frequency span between 437.350 – 437.540. In the middle of this span would CubeBUG-2 transmit its data. In meantime listen to Delfi-n3Xt at 145.870. When the pass started it was a overwhelming. Delfi-n3Xt pass coming via the VHF Icom 910H and the 192khz span of the FUNcube Dongle Pro+ showed a lot of signals being received. I wasn’t able to decode any 2400 baud BPSK signal from Delfi-n3Xt but after the pass when I analysed the IQ file that was recorded with SDR# I could decode signals from ZAcube-1, UWE-3 and CubeBUG-2.

The following frames are decoded from a recorded SDR IQ file, therefor the timestamps are of.

ZAcube-1 1k2 decode:

2013-11-21 09:11:07.750 UTC: [47 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 12   PID: F0 {I06^}   26 Payload Bytes
from 123456 to 012345: 
   1 > DC 0C 16 7A 61 63 75 62 65 30 31 2E 00 00 13 09 2C 0A DC 2C
  21 > 06 7B 2C 0C 2E DC 
Ü..zacube01.....,.Ü,.{,..Ü

UWE-3 9k6 decode:

2013-11-21 14:47:59.380 UTC: [60 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 3   PID: F0 {UI}   41 Payload Bytes
from DP0UWG to DD0UWE: 
   1 > 00 53 20 64 64 59 B3 21 02 FC 14 6A 13 00 00 18 6A 86 F4 42 
  21 > 59 5E 34 10 07 00 17 58 10 1F 00 17 36 01 F5 FD DE E8 F4 F5 
  41 > DC 
.S ddY³!.ü.j....j†ôBY^4....X....6.õýÞèôõÜ

CubeBUG-2 9k6 decode:

2013-11-21 14:59:10.800 UTC: [98 Bytes KISS Frame (without CRC)]
ctrl: 3   PID: F0 {UI}   78 Payload Bytes
from CUBEB2-6 to CQ: 
   1 > FF FF F0 00 00 14 CA 00 00 01 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 3D E0 00 
  21 > 00 00 00 AF 00 01 00 CA 1E 77 03 F7 02 C9 03 FF 03 FF 02 D9 
  41 > 02 B6 03 FF 03 3F 03 B6 03 C4 0A C7 05 01 C5 AA 19 F8 FB B8 
  61 > 03 DB FD DD FF 65 09 47 02 51 E3 8A FF 6C 00 00 00 00 
ÿÿð...Ê..........=à....¯...Ê.w.÷.É.ÿ.ÿ.Ù.¶.ÿ.?.¶.Ä.Ç..Ū.øû¸.ÛýÝÿe.G.QãŠÿl....

In a later pass also an APRS message from CubeBUG-2:

1:Fm CUBEB2-6 To CQ  [13:34:56R]
:EMAIL :manolito@satellogic.com Upt: 04:41:43 Bat:7.90v Temp:27.6C Gyr:87.77d/s

So far so good, I have 2Gb of IQ data that can be analyzed. This is what I can tell so far, the launch is a success and there are some teams that are still searching for there satellites. Good luck all, I’ll point my antenna’s to the sky when I am able to.

After analyzing the IQ files I also saw the data from Humsat-D, very strong 1200 baud GMSK data and Morse code, modulation type FM. Very difficult to decode the CW data. It is time I learned CW because the Computer isn’t able to decode the data.

Below an image with from left to right: HumSat-D CW, ZAcube 1k2 AFSK and UWE-3 9k6 FSK.