[amsat-bb] DSLWP Lunar Amateur Radio Mission to be Launched This Sunday

[韦明川]

Dear OMs,

 

DSLWP is a lunar formation flying mission led by Harbin Institute of Technology for low frequency radio astronomy, amateur radio and education. It consists of a pair of 47 kg microsatellites, to be launched into a lunar transfer orbit UTC this Sunday evening, and finally enter a 300 x 9000km lunar elliptical orbit. Onboard each satellite, there are two VHF/UHF SDR transceivers to provide beacon, telemetry, telecommand, digital image downlink and a GMSK-JT4 repeater. Onboard transmitting power is about 2 W.

 

The first launch window will open at about 21:30 May 20th UTC. The transmitters will be activated soon after separation. Satellite A will transmit 500 baud GMSK with 1/4 turbo code on 435.425 MHz and 250 baud GMSK with 1/2 turbo code and precoder on 436.425 MHz, and satellite B will transmit 500 baud GMSK with 1/4 turbo code on 435.400 MHz and 250 baud GMSK with 1/2 turbo code and precoder on 436.400 MHz, in every 5 minutes by default. Each transmittion will last about 16 seconds. Radio amateurs in South America will have the earliest chance to receive the signals from the satellites, then North America, Oceania, Asia, Europe and Africa.

 

Harbin Institute of Technology Amateur Radio Club expects radio amateurs to join in this mission. We will prepare different QSL cards for different flight phase for amateurs successfully made QSO or received telemetry. Awards will also be given to the first 10 amateurs in each continent who successfully decoded the signals from the satellites, received the most number of packets, or received an image. Your participation will also help the team to get a better knowledge of the status of the satellites.

 

An open source decoding software based on GNU Radio to work with RTL-SDR and USRP is provided. Not difficult to change the grc files to support other SDR receivers. A small proxy software will send the decoded data to a server for real-time display.

 

Thank you very much and fingers crossed for a successful launch!

 

Best Regards,

 

Wei Mingchuan BG2BHC

 

Links:

IARU frequency coordination page: http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=530 

Link budgets: http://lilacsat.hit.edu.cn/wp/?page_id=676 

Decoder (GNU Radio OOT module): https://github.com/bg2bhc/gr-dslwp 

Decoder (Linux Live CD): https://1drv.ms/u/s!Av6J6WjI3UbMhHm8gwMr4Z_keqWH 

TLE: http://lilacsat.hit.edu.cn/tle/dslwp.txt 

DSLWP-A Telemetry Display: http://lilacsat.hit.edu.cn/dashboard/pages_en/telemetry-a.html 

DSLWP-B Telemetry Display: http://lilacsat.hit.edu.cn/dashboard/pages_en/telemetry-b.html 




--

WEI Mingchuan


Research Center of Satellite Technology
Harbin Institute of Technology
mobile: +86-189-4501-5242
e-mail: wmc_jx at 163.com; bg2bhc at gmail.com