satellites – Page 5 – SolderSmoke Daily News

Cosmonautics Day Follow-up

Mark, K6HX, took a break from Hummingbird photography and captured some of the images streaming down from the International Space Station on Cosmonautics Day (April 11): http://brainwagon.org/2015/04/11/sstv-from-the-iss/
Very cool Mark (and I think the bird pictures are just as cool!)

Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics” http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Happy Cosmonautics Day! Yuri Gagarin Images (SSTV) from Space This Weekend

http://m0dcm.co.uk/?tag=sstv

From the ARISS Web Site:

http://www.ariss.org/news.html

Latest NewsApril 6, 2015

ISS Slow Scan TV Expected Weekend of April 11
In celebration of Cosmonautics Day, Russian ARISS SSTV activity is planned for the second week of April.

Cosmonautics Day celebrates Yuri Gagarin’s famous flight on April 12, 1961 becoming the first human to reach space.

The SSTV event is planned for Saturday, April 11, beginning at 10:00 UTC and continuing until 21:00 UTC. All transmissions will use the high resolution SSTV mode PD180. Transmissions will be at 145.800 MHz. If similar to past events, 12 different photos will be sent through the weekend with 3 minute off periods between transmissions.

To receive the images in real time, all that’s required is a 2 meter radio receiver and a computer to convert the receiver’s audio to image form. The software to do this is available as freeware on the internet at sites such as http://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php. Received images can be uploaded and viewed at the ARISS Image gallery found at http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php .

Those capturing images are encouraged to upload them to http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/submit.php

Uploaded images may be viewed at http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/

Please be advised that situational demands on crew time could result in postponement or cancellation of any ARISS activity. Please pay attention to the possibility of any change in scheduling.

Soviet Union-1965-Stamp-0.12. Cosmonautics Day.jpg

This Kid has THE KNACK TO THE MAX! And is in the International Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards! (VIDEO)

Oh man, we’ve all been there in one form or another. The struggle, the frustration, then, THE TRIUMPH! I love when his mother drops the plate.
Thanks to John KC0BMF

This Kid has THE KNACK TO THE MAX! And is in the International Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards! (VIDEO)

Oh man, we’ve all been there in one form or another. The struggle, the frustration, then, THE TRIUMPH! I love when his mother drops the plate.
Thanks to John KC0BMF

Sputnik 40 Launched from MIR in 1997

Bill,
I’m new to SolderSmoke, and have made it up to episode 135. around episode 130 you entered a “space” phase that I enjoyed. With Sputnik being mentioned, I thought I would send you a recording of Sputnik 40 that I made on November 23, 1997. I used a home made turnstile antenna and an HT.

73,
Jeff Tucker
W9TLT

Listen to Jeff’s recording here:

http://soldersmoke.com/sputnik97.wav

Sputnik 40, also known as Sputnik Jr, and Radio Sputnik 17 (RS-17), was a Franco-Russian amateur radio satellite which was launched in 1997 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite. A 4-kilogram (8.8 lb) one-third scale model of Sputnik 1, Sputnik 40 was deployed from the Mir space station on 3 November 1997. Built by students, the spacecraft was constructed at the Polytechnic Laboratory of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria, whilst its transmitter was assembled by Jules Reydellet College in Réunion with technical support from AMSAT-France.

Sputnik 40 was launched, along with a backup spacecraft and the X-Mir inspection satellite, aboard Progress M-36 at 15:08 UTC on 5 October 1997. A Soyuz-U carrier rocket placed the spacecraft into orbit, flying from 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan: the same launch pad used by Sputnik 1. Progress M-36 docked to Mir on 8 October, and the satellites were transferred to the space station. At 04:05 UTC on 3 November, during an extra-vehicular activity, Sputnik 40 was deployed by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Pavel Vinogradov.

On 4 November, the day after it was deployed, Sputnik 40 was in a low Earth orbit with a perigee of 376 kilometres (234 mi), an apogee of 382 kilometres (237 mi), an inclination of 51.6 degrees, and a period of 92.13 minutes.The satellite was given the International Designator 1997-058C, and was catalogued by the United States Space Command as 24958. It ceased operations on 29 December 1997 when its batteries expired, and subsequently decayed from orbit on 21 May 1998. The backup satellite remained aboard Mir, and was destroyed when Mir was deorbited on 23 March 2001.

ISEE-3 Recovery Hiccup

Now that’s a McDonald’s that you would want to work in! That’s the headquarters for the ISEE-3 recovery effort. (Is it also the place where they recovered the long-lost moon photos from the 1960s?)

This week the ISEE-3 effort hit a bump in the road. Getting old gear to work properly is never easy. Be patient fellows!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/us/in-effort-to-shift-abandoned-nasa-craft-a-hiccup-or-burp.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article

Contact Reestablished with ISEE-3 Satellite

http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-in-command-of-the-isee-3-spacecraft.html

A Worthy Cause: Help Save the ISEE-3 Spacecraft!

http://www.rockethub.com/projects/42228-isee-3-reboot-project-by-space-college-skycorp-and-spaceref

Here is an excerpt from the above website:

Our plan is simple: we intend to contact the ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer) spacecraft, command it to fire its engine and enter an orbit near Earth, and then resume its original mission – a mission it began in 1978. ISEE-3 was rechristened as the International Comet Explorer (ICE). If we are successful it may also still be able to chase yet another comet.

Working in collaboration with NASA we have assembled a team of engineers, programmers, and scientists – and have a large radio telescope fully capable of contacting ISEE-3. If we are successful we intend to facilitate the sharing and interpretation of all of the new data ISEE-3 sends back via crowd sourcing.

Time is short. And this project is not without significant risks. We need your financial help. ISEE-3 must be contacted in the next month or so and it must complete its orbit change maneuvers no later than mid-June 2014. There is excitement ahead as well: part of the maneuvers will include a flyby of the Moon at an altitude of less than 50 km.

Our team members at Morehead State University, working with AMSAT-DL in Germany, have already detected the carrier signals from both of ISEE-3’s transmitters. When the time comes, we will be using the large dish at Morehead State University to contact the spacecraft and give it commands.
Thanks to Dave, WA8JNM, for the heads up on this.

Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics” http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

German Radio Amateurs Receive Signals from ICE Spacecraft

The wizards at AMSAT-DL have done it again! Their latest feat of outer space derring-do is the reception of the 5 watt (QRP!) signal from the lost (now found) ICE spacecraft. Details here:
http://amsat-uk.org/2014/03/09/radio-amateurs-receive-nasa-isee-3ice-spacecraft/

Here is their facility:

ISEE-3 Spacecraft Returns after Being Forgotten

Hack-A-Day has issued a challenge to hams and hackers:

http://hackaday.com/2014/02/14/call-for-hams-and-hackers-welcome-iceisee-3-home/#more-114769

If a BITX 20/40 would help, I stand ready to assist!

The NASA Juno Fly-by “Hams say HI to Juno” Video (very nice)

First Pictures of the Far Side of the Moon (1959!)

On October 7, 1959, the Soviets sent an “automatic interplanetary station” to the moon. This, in itself, was an amazing achievement. Even more amazing is how they managed — using 1950s technology — to photograph the far side of the moon and get the images back to the earth.

The Soviet document on the Harvard site (below) says that the transmitter put out “a few watts” and used semiconductors. There appears, however, to have been at least one vacuum tube aboard (the cathode ray tube used to scan the chemically developed photo negatives). Frequency modulated analog video similar to FAX) was used to send the data.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1962IAUS…14….7L/0000007.000.html

From Wikipedia:

Luna-3 was the first successful three-axis stabilized spacecraft. During most of the mission, the spacecraft was spin stabilized, but for photography of the Moon, the spacecraft oriented one axis toward the Sun and then a photocell was used to detect the Moon and orient the cameras towards it. Detection of the Moon signaled the camera cover to open and the photography sequence to start automatically. The images alternated between both cameras during the sequence. After photography was complete, the film was moved to an on-board processor where it was developed, fixed, and dried. Commands from the Earth were then given to move the film into a scanner where a spot produced by a cathode ray tube was projected through the film onto a photoelectric multiplier. The spot was scanned across the film and the photomultiplier converted the intensity of the light passing through the film into an electric signal which was transmitted to the Earth (via frequency-modulated analog video, similar to a facsimile). A frame could be scanned with a resolution of 1000 (horizontal) lines and the transmission could be done at a slow-scan television rate at large distances from the Earth and a faster rate at closer ranges.
The camera took 29 pictures over 40 minutes on 7 October 1959, from 03:30 UT to 04:10 UT at distances ranging from 63,500 km to 66,700 km above the surface, covering 70% of the lunar far side. Seventeen (some say twelve) of these frames were successfully transmitted back to the Earth, and six were published (frames numbered 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, and 35). They were mankind’s first views of the far hemisphere of the Moon.

More info: http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/luna3/Luna3story.html#Film

NASA needs Ham Help! Say HI to Juno (on its way to Jupiter) on 10 meter CW!

This is really interesting:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/hijuno/

Thanks to Richard, KK4JDO, for the heads-up.

Dipoles in Space! Millions of them!

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/08/project-west-ford/

Happy World Cosmonautics Day!

Sputnik Schematic Found!

We were searching for this last year. Oleg, RV3GM, finally found the schematic for the transmitter in the Sputnik satellite.

ftp://ftp.radio.ru/pub/2013/04/55.pdf

Vanguard!

Wow, Vanguard even looks like a QRPp satellite.

I suspected that something was up: I noticed that Mike Rainey, AA1TJ has recently been crossing pond with a QRPp Germanium rig… Then Steve “Snort Rosin” Smith clued me in: The next period of Vanguard QRPp Activity Days begins tomorrow. “Club 72” has a nice write up, and a nice collection of pictures of the Vanguard rigs that have been built around the world:

http://www.club72.su/vanguard.html

Go Germanium! Go Vanguard!

FITSAT-1 Flashing Morse With LEDs from Orbit

Very cool: Japanese students sent up a small satellite. One of its capabilities is to flash Morse code messages in the visible light range using LEDs. Prepare to peg your geek meter:
http://www.fit.ac.jp/~tanaka/fitsat.shtml

Uncle Sam Wants You! (Well, really your Telescope)

I don’t think they will be that interested in my $50 Tasco 4.5 inch reflector, but I am thinking about sending in a proposal for a 1.2 million dollar series of upgrades for the old ‘scope!

ARDUSAT: Arduino In SPAAACE!

Billy’s Arduino Uno board arrived yesterday and he has been working on getting the LED to blink. (We bought the board with funds generated by people who have been entering Amazon through the SolderSmoke blog site — thanks.) We really like the little Italian board. On it you will find a map of Italy, including Sardinia and Sicily. And there is a notation on the board noting that its production was carbon neutral. Bravi!

The video above shows one of the cooler applications of the Arduino board.

Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics”http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20