[amsat-bb] AO73/FUNcube-1 Third Birthday

[Graham Shirville]

Today, November 21st 2016, marks the third birthday in space for our baby, 
985 gram, spacecraft.

FUNcube-1 was launched at 07:10 UTC on November 21st 2013 and its first 
signals were received immediately after deployment over the Indian Ocean by 
amateurs in South Africa. Since then it has been operating continuously in 
either its education mode or, with the transponder active, in amateur mode 
when in eclipse and at weekends.

The FUNcube team are very grateful to everyone who has been contributing 
their telemetry records to the Data Warehouse and also to those who are 
using FUNcube-1 for educational outreach to schools and colleges around the 
world. This important part of our mission is intended to encourage young 
people to develop an interest and passion in all STEM subjects for their 
future.

The spacecraft is operating nominally - the telemetry indicates that all the 
sub-systems are fine. The battery voltages, solar panel charge currents and 
on board temperatures are virtually unchanged since launch.

In addition to FUNcube-1, there are now similar FUNcube transponders 
operating in low earth orbit on the UKube-1 and EO79/QB50p1 CubeSats.

The team has recently contributed to the development of Nayif-1, which is 
presently awaiting launch, and is currently working on a number of further 
CubeSat and microsat projects.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AO73!