Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Feb.11.2020

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):

** Arizona State Univ. Phoenix CubeSat set to deploy from ISS on Feb.12th. The first ASU undergraduate student built satellite, Phoenix will study Urban Heat Islands with observations of the earth using an infrared camera. The team welcomes help in visual tracking and amateur radio contacts.

After deployment, it will take some trial and error before we are able to confirm our spacecraft’s TLEs before we can comfortably predict its orbit. The more people who can help us spot our spacecraft, the sooner our operations phase can officially begin! If you would like to help listen for Phoenix, you can do so with the information below.

If you think you’ve heard from Phoenix and you are a member of the SatNOGS network, please publish your observation on the Libre Space community page, and tag @sarah_srogers in the post.

ASU Phoenix Cubesat Diagram — Component diagram of the ASU Phoenix Cubesat.

** Orbital Factory-2 communicates with the Univ. Texas at El Paso team that built the CubeSat in collaboration with Lockheed-Martin. The spacecraft was released into orbit via a Nanoracks deployment system on February 3rd from the Northrop-Grumman Cygnus cargo vehicle after it departed from the ISS. UTEP Successfully Communicates With Satellite to Cap Monumental Project – Univ. Texas at El Paso

Joel Quintana, Ph.D., research assistant professor of mechanical engineering and a UTEP alumnus, said 25 students from various engineering disciplines worked on the OF-2 project throughout the course of two years. He was with a group of those students at a cSETR research space provided by the City of El Paso near the UTEP campus as they waited on notification from OF-2.

“Seeing their excitement when the first ping came in when they were able to communicate with the satellite as it orbited over El Paso was priceless,” Quintana said. “They leave this program knowing how to design, build and test spacecraft, making them really high in demand and industry experts.”

With this milestone reached, cSETR will now set off on a set of new initiatives including the development of spacecraft capabilities for on-orbit manufacturing, and planetary and lunar exploration. The center will conduct this work concurrently with its primary mission of training El Paso talent and cultivating a space technology workforce.

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-040 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

Clayton Coleman, W5PFG, Elected AMSAT President
Phoenix CubeSat Upcoming Deployment
New ISS Tour Video Goes Inside Cygnus NG-12
Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution
HuskySat-1 Gains Enthusiastic Following
Robert Bankston, KE4AL, Proposes amsatLink Project
10 US Schools Moved Forward in ARISS Selection Process
AMSAT at Yuma (Arizona) Hamfest, 14-15 February 2020
Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
Upcoming Satellite Operations
Satellite Shorts From All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

** Jeff Dillon – Cubesat to Mars – 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention [October 17-20, 2019]

** NASA’s Cube Quest Challenge Crowdsources Ideas for Deep Space CubeSats

Pushing the boundaries of space technology, NASA’s first in-space competition invites the public to design, build and launch small satellites capable of advanced operations near and beyond the Moon. Three winners from the ground competition, completed in 2017, are readying their CubeSats for launch on Artemis I, the first uncrewed flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft. Want to get in on the action? Additional teams can compete in the Deep Space Derby and Lunar Derby by securing their own launch opportunity. Explore more about NASA’s Cube Quest Centennial Challenge: http://www.nasa.gov/cubequest