On 20/05/17 we had the annual meeting of the UBA, this time in the EUROSPACECENTRE in Transinne (Belgium)
http://www.eurospacecenter.be/en
This is really a place to visit with the family if you are in anything concerning space...
 

We had 3 presentations related to (amateur)sats:
 

1) OUFTI-2 and OUFTI-NEXT: Cubesat activities at the university of Liège
By the team of the university of Liège
OUFTI-1 had a lifespan of only 12 days, the team was so excited that there was a report from David m0osa in the "World of VHF" column in Practical Wireless from may 17 that they will reactivitate the monitoring of OUFTI-1, so if anyone hear OUFTI-1, please let me know, and I will transfer the info to the team.
The team has no idea what went wrong with OUFTI-1, but the good news is that work on OUFTI-2 and OUFTI-NEXT is in full swing.
OUFTI-2 will be an improved successor of OUFTI-1 still containing D-STAR, It is an educational cubesat of 1 kg, 1 liter, 1 watt. It is designed totally from scratch using the lessons learned from OUFTI-1.
It will contain:
- D-STAR, with addition of beacon mode in D-STAR sending the audio message "Hi from OUFTI-2" and AX25 from 1200 to 9600bd adjustable,
- radiation experiment which measures the degradation of electronical components by radiation,
- Inertial measurement unit developed by students from a secondary school in Jette near Brussels.
The launch will take place from the ISS from 2018 onwards depending on the launch availability on the ISS. OUFTI-2 will have a lifespan of +/- 1 year, because of the low orbit.

OUFTI-NEXT is based on the structure and logic of OUFTI-1 & 2, but will not have hamradio on board. It is a orbital utility for thermal imaging: it will dedect the lack of water by monitoring the leaf surface temperature with a 100m ground resolution.


2) "QB50 project: A constellation of cubesats to investigate the earth mid/lower thermosphere"
By the coordinator (YL) Amandine Denis on4eya from the Von Karman Institute (VKI) near Brussels.
https://www.vki.ac.be/
This is a European Union funded project coordinated by VKI with partners from 16 different countries in 5 continents across Europe, Russia, China, USA...
The thermosphere is the less known layer from the atmosphere, the cubesats will fall from 420km down to 200km in one year scanning the chemistry of the thermosphere. Some questions from the audience pointed to the relevance of this project for our knowledge on propagation like sporadic E....
28 cubesats will be launched from ISS (actually now...), and 8 cubesats will be launched by an Indian rocket in june 17.
All satelites have Belgain callsigns with the last 2 letters indicating the country of origin of the sat, thanks to a good cooperation with the Belgain telecommunication authority (BIPT):
on05fr = french sat
on01au = from Australia...
All the links are in amateur bands, between 435.7 and 438 MHz, with 2 voice transponders on01fr and on05fr
on01fr downlink 437.020 MHz
on05fr downlink 436.880 MHz
uplink frequency for both is 145.860 MHz with 210.7 Hz CTCSS
LilacSat-1 or on02cn , has a FM to Codec2-BPSK Digital Voice transponder, an APRS digipeater and camera.
FM Uplink 145.985 MHz with 67 Hz CTCSS to Codec2 9600 bps BPSK Downlink 436.510 MHz
More info at: http://lilacsat.hit.edu.cn/?page_id=594
Help from radio-amateurs is most welcome, amateurs can register to the QB50 DPAC forum to contribute reception report, telemetry, audio files, questions and discussions... at:
https://upload.qb50.eu/


3) MYSAT-1
by on6ti Stefan Dombrowski
MySat is the "satellite" that each of 10 youngsters (3 girls and 7 boys) has build during a SatCamp week in the EUROSPACECENTRE last summer and was carried on board a drone for a flight at an altitude of 90m.
MySat is inspired by the CubeSats, and the name "MySat" comes from the fact that each youngster will be able to take his own satellite home, and give it his/her own name fe TIMSAT or JEFSAT....
The first SatCamp brought together youngsters between the ages of 13 and 16, who have to solder, program and test the assembly.
MySat consists of an Arduino onboard computer, a few temperature, pressure and humidity sensors and can communicate via radio (on 2.4Ghz) with a ground station """Houston control""" of 5 youngsters that collects the data, while the other youngsters are launching there sat with the drone, and vice versa.
The case was entirely realized on a 3D printer.
MySat is scalable: indeed there is room to solder its own project and it is planned during a SatCamp-2 in the summer of 2017 to add sensors, gyroscopic 3-axis and a GPS. 2 groups of a dozen trainees are already fully booked and there is a waiting list...

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