Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space Radio

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Jan.1.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. about student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:

** Soyuz launches cluster of 28 satellites – Spaceflight Now

The University of Würzburg’s fourth experimental CubeSat, known as UWE 4, carries a miniaturized electric propulsion system to be demonstrated in orbit, and also serves as an educational tool for the German university’s engineering students.

…

The other satellites deployed in the Fregat’s final orbit were ZACube 2, a South African CubeSat, and the Lume 1 CubeSat from Spain.

Equipped with an AIS receiver to monitor ships and a medium-resolution near-infrared camera to track maritime traffic and detect wildfires, ZACube 2 was developed by the French South African Institute of Technology and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology near Cape Town. Lume 1 comes from the University of Vigo and a spinoff Spanish company named Alén Space, and is also designed for the early detection of wildfires.

** Würzburg experimental satellite “Uwe 4” arrived in orbit | BR24 (Translation)

From now on, “Uwe 4” should contact the ground station in Würzburg six times a day for about ten minutes. “Uwe 4” is supposed to circle the earth for about a year. The micro satellite carries an electric engine that allows it to change its orbit in orbit. In the class of the so-called “Pico satellites” , up to a weight of one kilogram, the Würzburg researchers are the first to succeed.

“In this respect, this is a new milestone for the world of micro-satellites, which was realized together with the partners of the Technical University of Dresden.” Professor Klaus Schilling from the Chair of Robotics and Telematics

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-364 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • AMSAT CW Activity Day January 1, 2019 In Memory Of W3XO
  • Soyuz Flight Deploys Amateur Radio Satellites
  • In-Orbit Test (IOT) of Es’hail-2 AMSAT P4-A transponders
  • Changes to the AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution for December 27, 2018
  • Ham Talk Live Podcast Featuring KO4MA
  • Multiple Flight Projects Selected by International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory
  • AMSAT Awards Update
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • Satellite Shorts from All Over

** Episode 146 – Making the Most of Satellite Time | Ham Talk Live! – “Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, from AMSAT is here to talk your calls about getting the most out of satellite time. We’ll talk about what to say, when to say it, and other etiquette and protocol issues so that you can make the most of your satellite operation!”

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General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – Dec.31.2018

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, Dec. 31, 2018:; 2-3:30 pm PST (4-5:30 pm CST, 5-6:30 pm EST): No show today due to New Years Eve. Happy New Years Everyone.

2. Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019: 7-8:30 pm PST (9-10:30 pm CST; 10-11:30 pm EST): No show today due to New Years. Happy New Year everyone.

3. Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.

4. Friday, Jan. 4, 2019: 9:30-11 am PST; 11:30 AM-1 pm CST; 12:30-2 pm EST. We welcome FRANK BUNGER, CEO of Orion Span (www.orionspan.com), which is developing Aurora Station, “the world’s first luxury space hotel in orbit”.

5. Sunday, Jan. 6 2019: 12-1:30 pm PST, (3-4:30 pm EST, 2-3:30 pm CST): This will be our first Open Lines show for 2019. We will announce some Space Show changes, talk about current news happening, listen to what is on your mind and more. First time callers welcome.

See also:
* The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
* The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
* The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

The Space Show - David Livingston
The Space Show – David Livingston

Some recent programs:

** The Space Show – Friday, 12/28/2018 – Dr. Alan Stern talked about the New Horizon probe’s flyby of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.

** The Space Show – Sun, 12/30/2018 – Thomas A. Olson and David Livingston reviewed the past year in space.

** Sun, 12/23/2018 – David led an open lines discussion with Space Show listeners on a wide range of space related topics.

** Fri, 12/21/2018 – Space lawyer Laura Montgomery gave “a space policy, law and regulatory review for 2018”.

** Wed, 12/19/2018 – Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com talked about the recent “Cosmonaut risky spacewalk, ISS leak, Angara pad construction issues, Vostochny construction company corruption”.

 

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Dec.31.2018

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:

Webcasts:

** Watch: Why is ISRO keen to take humans to space – The Economic Times Video | ET Now

** The Space Show – Friday, 12/28/2018 – Dr. Alan Stern talked about the New Horizon probe’s flyby of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.

** The Space Show – Sun, 12/30/2018 – Thomas A. Olson and David Livingston reviewed the past year in space.

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Amateur/Student Satellite, Rockets, Space Systems

Rocket launches: Chinese Long March-2D + Soyuz-2.1a

A couple of launches by China and Russia finish out a busy year of global rocket traffic:

** Chinese Long March-2D/YZ-3 (Chang Zheng-2D/YZ-3) rocket launch today with six atmospheric environment research satellites from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center –

More at

** Russian Soyuz-2.1a launched two remote sensing satellites plus 26 educational and commercial small satellites:

From the caption:

A Soyuz-2.1a (Союз-2.1а) launch vehicle, with a Fregat (Фрегат) upper stage, launched the Kanopus-V №5 (Канопус-В № 5) and Kanopus-V №6 (Канопус-В № 6) remote sensing satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast, Russia, on 27 December 2018, at 02:07 UTC (11:07 local time). As secondary payloads, Soyuz-2.1a launched 26 small satellites: GRUS (Axelspace), Flock 3k (twelve Planet Labs Inc 3U Dove CubeSats), ZACube-2, Lume-1 cubesat, D-Star ONE (iSat), D-Star ONE (Sparrow), eight Lemur-class satellites (Spire Global Inc) and UWE-4 (Würzburg University).

More at:

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Living in Space, Science and Technology, Space Settlement

Videos: Greenhouse lettuce for Antarctica + Greenhouse citrus for Nebraska

The TMRO Science program recently had an interesting long-distance conversation with Paul Zaber, a scientist working with the EDEN-ISS project in Antarctica. The project involves operating a greenhouse in Antarctica to learn how foods can be grown more effectively in a closed-loop environment. This has applications for space habitation as well as for food production on Earth.

The goal of the EDEN ISS project is to advance controlled environment agriculture technologies beyond the state-of-the-art. It focuses on ground demonstration of plant cultivation technologies and their application in space. EDEN ISS develops safe food production for on-board the International Space Station (ISS) and for future human space exploration vehicles and planetary outposts.

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Operating a greenhouse in Nebraska may seem to be a far less interesting challenge than doing so in Antarctica but growing tropical fruits and other warm climate plants in a region that often reaches -20°F (about -30°C) in winter is not a trivial accomplishment.

Retiree Russ Finch has developed a clever low-cost approach to keeping the inside of a northern latitude greenhouse temperate year round using underground warmth, i.e. geothermal heat. Rather than a complex and expensive system involving an anti-freeze fluid controlled with pumps and valves, he designed a simple low-cost system with fans blowing air through plastic tubes buried about 2 meters below the surface. The ground at that depth stays constant at about 50°F (10°C)  year round. He grows oranges, lemons, and many other tropical fruits and vegetables in his greenhouse.

From the caption to the video:

… retired mailman Russ Finch grows oranges in his backyard greenhouse without paying for heat. Instead, he draws on the earth’s stable temperature (around 52 degrees in his region) to grow warm weather produce- citrus, figs, pomegranates – in the snow.

Finch first discovered geothermal heating in 1979 when he and his wife built it into their 4400-square-foot dream home to cut energy costs. Eighteen years later they decided to add a 16’x80′ greenhouse in the backyard. The greenhouse resembles a pit greenhouse (walipini) in that the floor is dug down 4 feet below the surface and the roof is slanted to catch the southern sun.

To avoid using heaters for the cold Nebraska winter nights, Finch relies on the warm underground air fed into the greenhouse via plastic tubing under the yard and one fan.

For more about Finch’s greenhouse designs, see Citrus In The Snow- Geothermal Greenhouse

Over 40 installations have now been built following Finch’s designs as outlined in his Citrus In The Snow Report.

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The High Frontier: An Easier Way

Everyone can participate in space