Two NanoSatisfi CubeSats Deployed from ISS

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station successfully deployed two NanoSatisfi CubeSats named ArduSat-1 and ArduSat-X this morning.  They also deployed a Vietnamese micro satellite, named Pico Dragon from the orbital outpost.

The ArduSat spacecraft have pre-built experiments such as measuring the Earth’s magnetic field that can be run by students across the world. Students are also free to design custom experiments and applications.

Students of four can purchase a full week to control the satellite for $1,000. “In addition, every seat comes with full access to our online curriculum and Mission Control Center where students can learn about space science, physics and computer programming (with Arduino)—not to mention, control a satellite directly from their Internet browser,” according to NanoSatisfi’s website.

HAM Radio Tracking of ArduSats

If you’re a HAM and would like to help out the Ardusat team, you can listen for our Morse beacons and send them to us! This beacon gives us important information – like battery voltage and lets us know that the satellites are still alive!

The initial TLE for AS-1 and AS-X will be the same as the ISS until they put some distance between each other and are assigned their own Noad IDs.

TLE for ISS: https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/stations.txt  (What is a TLE?)

Both satellites will have a Morse beacon (FM-modulated 800Hz tones) that is transmitted at 20 WPM every two or three minutes on 437.000 MHz. The beacon will be structured in the following format:

ArduSat-1 beacon: Battery voltage (uint16_t), RX_counter (number of received valid data packets, uint32_t), TX_counter (number of sent valid data packets, uint32_t), “WG9XFC-1″

ArduSat-X beacon: Battery voltage (uint16_t), RX_counter (number of received valid data packets, uint32_t), TX_counter (number of sent valid data packets, uint32_t), “WG9XFC-X”

Submitting a beacon packet:

You can submit a beacon as plain text to [email protected] – be sure to put the word “packet” in the subject line so that we can parse it quickly.

Submitting audio:

You can submit audio as an email attachment. Send an email to [email protected] – with the audio file as an attachment.

* AIRU recently reported the frequency of Ardusat as 437.325 MHz. The correct frequency is 437.000 MHz.