[amsat-bb] [Fwd: Re: Helping track YES2]

[David Johnson]

Hi,

There may be part of the YES2 / MASS project still operating, please 
read the following. Any help would be appreciated.

73

Dave
G4DPZ

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Helping track YES2
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:08:21 +0200
From: Roger.Walker at esa.int
To: Neil.Melville at esa.int
CC: Age-Raymond.Riise at esa.int, A.R.Bonnema at isispace.nl, 
david.johnson at blackpepper.co.uk, Fabio.De.Pascale at esa.int, 
gb4fun at rsgb.org.uk, g.shirville at btinternet.com, howard at howardlong.com, 
       kk at karlos.dk, kresten at control.aau.dk,        "Ubbels, W-J." 
<W.J.Ubbels at tudelft.nl>, fabio at fabiolinux.com

Neil,

The YES2 project very much appreciates the efforts of the GENSO community in
its attempts to search for and track MASS. We estimate that the battery life
would allow for about 10 hours of continuous telemetry transmission, so by
now we can assume that MASS is no longer functioning.

HOWEVER, the Fotino capsule should also be broadcasting data in orbit 
for the
next 4-5 days, so the YES2 project would like to request the assistance of
the GENSO community to search for and track Fotino.

We estimate the Fotino orbit to be similar to Foton-M3 but with a lower
perigee altitude of 230 km. Hence, we expect Fotino to be ahead of Foton-M3
in the ground track due to the slightly increased orbital period. Rough
estimations are for Fotino to advance ahead of Foton-M3 by about 1 
minute per
orbit since capsule release on 07:22 Zulu today.

Fotino should be transmitting data bursts of 312 bits (lasting 35
milliseconds) every 5 seconds at a frequency of 437 MHz (frequency 
separation
26 kHz). Every data burst starts with a sync word EB 90 (hex) and looks
something like:

EB 90 XX XX XX C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 XX XX XX XX XX XX 
XX XX
XX XX XX XX XX XX RR RR
where XX bytes are not constant and the 2 last bytes (RR) the CRC 
checksum of
the previous 296 bits of data.

Data encoding is FSK, Manchester code.

Any help from GENSO in finding Fotino would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Roger.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Roger Walker
Project Manager (YES2, ESEO and ESMO)
Acting Head of Education Projects Activities Unit (LEX-EP)
Education Office, European Space Agency
Telephone: +31(0)71 565 3349 - Fax: +31(0)71 565 5590
ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1 - 2201 AZ Noordwijk - The Netherlands




 

              Neil 

              Melville/estec/ESA 

 
    To
              25/09/2007 17:49           A.R.Bonnema at isispace.nl, 

 
david.johnson at blackpepper.co.uk,
                                         gb4fun at rsgb.org.uk, 

                                         g.shirville at btinternet.com, 

                                         kk at karlos.dk, 

                                         kresten at control.aau.dk, 
"Ubbels,
                                         W-J." <W.J.Ubbels at tudelft.nl>, 

                                         howard at howardlong.com 

 
    cc
                                         Roger Walker/estec/ESA at ESA, 
Fabio De
                                         Pascale/estec/ESA at ESA, 
Age-Raymond
                                         Riise/esoc/ESA at ESA 

 
Subject
                                         Re: Helping track YES2(Document 

                                         link: Roger Walker) 

 

 

 

 

 

 




Hi again everybody,

Ok, I think that no-one heard anything on this pass.  So perhaps the battery
is already dead, or the tether drag has moved the orbit enough to 
confuse us.
By the next pass the battery will almost certainly be depleted, so I think
there is little point in any of you tracking it further.

Thank you very much for your help on this.  I know that the project team
appreciate it.

You can track the further status of YES2 on the ESA website:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMBBBC1S6F_index_0.html  And also on the project
website: http://www.yes2.info/

Kresten, thanks for being so quick off the mark.

Abe and Wouter, reliable as ever - you'd started before I even called...

Carlos, a star, thanks.  I'm well aware that I still owe you presentation
material - I haven't been in ESTEC for more than 5 mins since the 
colloquium,
but I will be soon.

Howard, Dave and Graham, sorry for disturbing you when you have other
pressing non-ham related things to attend to.

It was anyway a nice demonstration of the GENSO community and what we 
can do.
I will send management a mail to that effect.  I think >=3 stations with an
hours notice is pretty good!  If only it were all automated already...

Many thanks again to all for trying.

Cheers,

Neil

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