A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):
** “Kesari” CubeSat built by Indian students in six months. After launch to orbit on an Indian rocket, the team at the NRI Institute of Technology (NRIIT) at Agiripalli in Krishna district will upload their country’s national anthem to the demonstration spacecraft: Satellite built by students to beam anthem from space – The Hindu
“The satellite will start functioning once put in orbit. Antennas fixed to ‘Kesari’ will beam the anthem in Morse code as high-frequency radio waves. The anthem can be heard by ham radio operators and on walkie talkies across the world,” Mr. Salvendar told The Hindu on Friday.
Mr. Manoj Kumar said that ‘Kesari’ will have a lifespan of more than six months if equipped with solar panels. He thanked faculty Sk. Abdul Rehaman and the institute management for encouraging them in designing the mini satellite.
NRIIT Placement Cell director N.V. Surendra Babu said that Mr. Salvendar and his team designed the 450-gram satellite in just 45 days. The students said they drew inspiration from Sputnik-1 designed by Russian scientists.
** PocketQubes will enable satellite projects for educational and non-profit organizations at even lower costs than CubeSats.
FOSSASAT-1, for example, is a PocketQube demo mission recently launched for Fossa Systems on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket.
FossaSat is a pocketqube satellite which is being developed using free and open source ethics, more detailed information about the hardware and software involved in this project can be found here.
It will create the world’s first free and open source IoT network. The satellite will test the new LoRa spread spectrum modulation, allowing unprecedented link budgets with <5$ receivers, democratizing telecommunications to millions of students and individuals worldwide.
Based on the 5x5x5cm PocketQube standard, it will truly reduce the barrier to entry for launching a satellite with launch and development costs under 30000 EUR.
Initial results are generally positive:
Although not a full mission success due to our deployable antennas not deploying and our link budget aprox. 25db inferior to planned. We have learnt invaluable data in this first mission for our upcoming missions (report coming). OBC & EPS working nominally for nearly 1 month! pic.twitter.com/IxfB7dUosD
— Fossa Systems (@FossaSys) December 30, 2019
** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-363 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin
- First Element of ARISS Next Generation Radio System Readied for Launch on SpaceX CRS-20
- ARISS SSTV Event Planned for December 28 – January 1
- Reminder: AMSAT CW Day on January 1
- Changes to AMSAT TLE Distribution for December 26
- Upcoming Satellite Operations
- Satellite Shorts From All Over
General CubeSat/SmallSat info:
- Resources:
- CubeSatShop.com – One-stop webshop for CubeSats & Nanosats
- Citadel Space Systems – “Designing Cubesats for Science and Interplanetary Exploration”
- Projects:
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