[amsat-bb] Amateur Deep Space Tracking

[PE0SAT | Amateur Radio]

Thanks Nico,

Great information!

73 Jan PE0SAT

On 21-04-2018 16:56, Nico Janssen wrote:
> All,
> 
> Many radio amateurs are familiar with tracking amateur satellites
> that orbit the Earth in low orbits or high elliptical orbits.
> Several tracking programs and all required orbital parameters are
> available for tracking these satellites.
> 
> But soon spacecraft carrying an amateur radio payload will be
> launched towards the Moon and beyond. If amateurs want to track
> these spacecraft they will need suitable tracking software and
> orbital elements to be able to calculate the positions of these
> spacecraft.
> 
> Calculations
> 
> Unfortunately none of the currently available tracking programs,
> used for satellite tracking by amateurs, is suitable for deep
> space tracking. But fortunately two free, open source software
> packages for Windows, Linux and Mac are available, that will
> enable deep space tracking:
> 
> General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT)
> http://gmatcentral.org/
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/gmat/files/GMAT/GMAT-R2017a/
> 
> SciLab, including CelestLab, CelestLabX and Aerospace Blockset
> http://www.scilab.org/
> http://atoms.scilab.org/toolboxes/celestlab
> https://atoms.scilab.org/toolboxes/aerospace_blockset
> 
> Probably most amateurs will prefer GMAT, because it is most user
> friendly, has a lot of documentation and help files, and contains
> many sample scripts. Scripts that are created by other amateurs
> can be used without having much knowledge or experience with
> GMAT.
> 
> Measurements
> 
> It is not certain that orbital elements for all deep space spacecraft
> carrying amateur radio payloads will be made available to
> radio amateurs. Therefore amateurs may need to measure these
> orbital elements themselves through doppler and ranging
> measurements. So amateurs will need to set up their own Amateur
> Deep Space Network, similar to NASA's DSN, ESA's Estrack, etc.
> This will require some stations with large enough antennas and
> with equipment to carry out doppler and ranging measurements
> to determine direction and distance to the spacecraft. This new
> development is an interesting challenge for radio amateurs.
> 
> For further details see my Amateur Deep Space Tracking page:
> https://hamsat1.home.xs4all.nl/index.html
> 
> You can find further information on space flight on this very
> informative set of pages:
> https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/
> Deep space navigation is covered in chapter 13:
> https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/chapter13-1/
> 
> 73,
> Nico PA0DLO
> 
> 
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