Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space participation

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Dec.26.2018

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

** UF research satellite launches into orbit – Gainesville Sun – Gainesville, FL

… NASA launched a University of Florida satellite that could help improve the accuracy of timing-sensitive satellites, such as GPS.

The satellite is more than 500 kilometers (315 miles) above Earth, orbiting at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour.

“We’ve spent five and a half years to get to this point, and the launch is always the riskiest part,” said UF mechanical and aerospace engineering Associate Professor John Conklin. “Having passed that hurdle, it feels great.”

The UF satellite was one of 13 research cube satellites launched by Rocket Lab Electron from New Zealand as part of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program. The goal of UF’s research from space is to improve time-transfer synchronizing systems through laser technology. Systems like GPS synchronize their times through radio waves, which have a higher delay in the atmosphere and also a higher error rate.

** UWE-4 satellite ready to launch | Southgate Amateur Radio News – UWE-4 – Lehrstuhl für Informatik VII

The University Würzburg Experimental Satellite 4 (UWE-4) is the most recent project within the UWE CubeSat family. This 1U (one unit) CubeSat will incorporate for the first time in the UWE program a propulsion system. The satellite is scheduled for launch on board a Soyuz-2 mission using a Fregat upper stage in December 2018.

** CubeSats Could Use Laser Pointers to Transmit Data to Earth > ENGINEERING.com

But laser communications also have a significant drawback: because laser beams are much more focused than radio waves, they need to be pointed with much greater precision at receivers on the ground.

The MIT team developed a laser-pointing platform about the size of a coffee mug that uses a mirror, smaller than a fingernail, to bounce the laser down toward a ground receiver. The platform can adjust the angle of the mirror to change the laser’s direction.

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-357 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • Changes to the AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution for December 20, 2018
  • UWE-4 Satellite Ready to Launch
  • New Amateur Radio Packet Gear Awaits Unpacking, Installation on Space Station
  • Successful “AMSAT on the Queen Mary” Operation
  • AMSAT CW Activity Day January 1, 2019 In Memory Of W3XO
  • ELaNa-XIX Successfully Launched
  • AMSAT Awards
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • ARISS News
  • Satellite Shorts from All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

  • Venture Class Rockets First Class Flights for CubeSats – NASA:

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Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – Dec.24.2018

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

1 Monday, Dec. 24, 2018: 2-3:30 pm PST (4-5:30 pm CST, 5-6:30 pm EST): No show today due to Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas everyone.

2. Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2018: 7-8:30 pm PST (9-10:30 pm CST; 10-11:30 pm EST): No show today due to Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone.

3. Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018: 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. SPECIAL TIME: Friday, Dec. 28, 201: 3 pm PST (5 pm CST; 6 pm EST): We welcome back Dr. Alan Stern for a special New Horizons broadcast.

5. Sunday, Dec. 30, 2018: 12-1:30 pm PST, (3-4:30 pm EST, 2-3:30 pm CST): We welcome back Thomas A. Olson for his annual end of the year commercial space review program plus a look ahead to 2019.

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 shows of interest:

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

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

** 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”.

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Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Rockets

Rocket launches: SpaceX Falcon 9 + Russian Proton + Chinese Long March-11

** A SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully put a USAF GPS satellite into orbit today following several scrubs this past week:

[ Update: A view of the launch from outside the Cape by the team at  www.USLaunchReport.com:

]

The launch took place at Cape Canaveral and caps a year with 21 successful launches for SpaceX.

More at:

** A Russian Proton rocket with a Breeze M upper stage successfully placed a military communications satellite into orbit on Friday: Military communications satellite launched by Russian Proton rocket – Spaceflight Now

The launch took place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Uzbekistan.

** A Chinese Long March-11 solid fuel rocket  also launched on Friday with the first Hongyun satellite intended for a constellation of satellites to provide broadband communications services.

The launch was from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

More at

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The High Frontier: An Easier Way

History, Spaceflight & Parabolic Flight, The Moon

On its 50th anniversary, Apollo 8 gets the appreciation it deserves

The Apollo 8 mission launched on Dec. 21, 1968 with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell Jr. and William Anders on board. About two and half hours after liftoff, the S-IV third stage fired for a second time and put their spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon. The crew members became the first humans to fly beyond low earth orbit.

The S-IV soon separated from the Apollo command service module and the spacecraft reached the Moon on Dec. 24th, going into orbit after the firing of the service module engine while on the far side. The crew orbited the Moon for 10 hours and would have been stuck there forever if the engine had not re-fired as planned. It did fire and the crew made it back to earth for a safe splashdown in the Pacific on Dec. 27th. The extremely risky mission was a tremendous success and its accomplishments made it possible for the US to achieve the goal set by John F. Kennedy of putting a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.

I recently wrote about the audiobook version of Bob Zimmerman’s 1998 book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8: The First Manned Mission to Another World.  Today Bob reflects on the mission, his book, and the growing appreciation of the significance of the Apollo 8 mission, which had nearly been lost in the glow of Apollo 11: Apollo 8: Fifty years ago | Behind The Black.

What I find gratifying is that it appears my goal in writing the book in 1998 has been an unparalleled success. Today alone there have been three major stories celebrating Apollo 8 and its legacy, from the Washington Post, Scientific American, and New Atlas. In the past week there have another half dozen. I expect dozens more in the coming week. All so far have gotten their facts right, and have been able to tell the story correctly of this nerve-racking mission given 50-50 odds of success. More important, all have understood thoroughly the political and historical context of the mission, and the long term impact that it had.

Fifty years ago on Dec. 21, 1968, Apollo 8 launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center at 7:51 a.m. EST). NASA Image of the Day.

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