[amsat-bb] Re: Can Radio Amateur Stations support scientific space missions ?

[G0MRF@aol.com]

In a message dated 28/11/2010 08:11:17 GMT Standard Time, pa3guo at upcmail.nl 
 writes:


One  of the conclusions in the reports: a 12 element antenna works just 
fine  !
Did anyone do a similar experiment and has interesting feedback to share  ?

--
Henk, PA3GUO



Hello Henk.
 
You are doing a great job with tracking these new birds and relaying audio  
on the internet.  The one that looks really interesting is the NASA solar  
sail cubesat.  From what I read, nanosail-d will be ejected from a pod  
within its host spacecraft anytime now.  The telemetry from that experiment  
will only last 12 days as it is powered by batteries. The rate of decay due  to 
the sail will be huge. 70 -120 days from 650km.
 
However, the problem for all of these new sats is a lack of TLEs on  
spacetrack. We stand virtually no chance of tracking nanosail D with its large  
decay rate if keps are not updated on a very regular basis.
For whatever reason NORAD (or whoever) have decided not to make them  
publically available and going to 5 or so individual sites to download keps  
isn't really viable.  It's a shame because the students are not going to  
receive anywhere near as much data as they normally would. Pity their professors  
could not lobby to release the keps as normal. - Probably just one  
individual needs a 'kick' in the right place.
 
Perhaps AMSAT needs to begin developing a method of generating its own keps 
 from AOS / LOS TCA times or perhaps if the satellite has a transponder, 
from  info from ranging experiments. Now, there's a nice project. Imagine a 
box  attached to your radio that has a display in km ! How cool would that be.
 
73
 
David