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34-758: Many amateur satellites receive an OSCAR designation, which is an acronym for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio . The designation is assigned by AMSAT , an organization which promotes the development and launch of amateur radio satellites. Because of the prevalence of this designation, amateur radio satellites are often referred to as OSCARs. These satellites can be used free of charge by licensed amateur radio operators for voice ( FM , SSB ) and data ( AX.25 , packet radio , APRS ) communications. Currently, over 18 fully operational amateur radio satellites are in orbit. They may be designed to act as repeaters , as linear transponders , and as store and forward digital relays. Amateur radio satellites have helped advance

68-575: A linear transponder for two-way communications in real time. Some satellites have a bulletin board for store-and-forward digital communications, or a digipeater for direct packet radio connections. Amateur satellites have been launched into low Earth orbits and into highly elliptical orbits . Currently, amateur satellites support many different types of operation, including FM voice and SSB voice, as well as digital communications of AX.25 FSK ( Packet radio ) and PSK-31 . Uplink and downlink designations use sets of paired letters following

102-626: A CubeSat Simulator as part of these efforts. AMSAT operates the AO-7 , AO-91 , and AO-92 satellites, which are open for general amateur use. The U.S. Air Force FalconSAT-3 was turned over to AMSAT for amateur radio use in late September 2017. AO-95 was launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon-9 SSO-A mission on 4 December 2018 and was later determined to have poor to no RF reception capability, thus preventing commissioning and putting its FM transponder mission into indefinite suspension. Highly elliptical orbit Too Many Requests If you report this error to

136-594: A mode V/U linear transponder has been accepted for a launch by the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative. Fox-1E was launched into orbit aboard a Virgin Orbit LauncherOne vehicle on 17 January 2021. Although the beacon has not been heard, the linear transponder is at least partially functioning with a low level downlink signal. AMSAT is currently developing the GOLF series of CubeSats with the first satellite in

170-586: A reduction or waiver of launch costs. One of the most significant is the Ariane Structure for Auxiliary Payloads (ASAP), developed and manufactured in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1990 for use on its Ariane 4 launch vehicle . AMSAT was again able to take advantage of unused space with the launch of AMSAT-OSCAR 40 (AO-40), occupying unused space on an Ariane 5 . The IPS (Interpreter for Process Structures) programming language

204-541: Is a list of major amateur satellites in Japanese Misplaced Pages ). Es’hail 2 / QO-100 Launched November 15, 2018.In geostationary orbit covering Brazil to Thailand. Narrowband Linear transponder 2400.050 - 2400.300 MHz Uplink 10489.550 - 10489.800 MHz Downlink Wideband digital transponder 2401.500 - 2409.500 MHz Uplink 10491.000 - 10499.000 MHz Downlink The first amateur satellites contained telemetry beacons. Since 1965, most OSCARs carry

238-667: Is possible, but it is difficult to remain precisely near the frequency. Frequency modulation is more tolerant of doppler shifts than single-sideband , and therefore FM is much easier to tune manually. A number of low Earth orbit (LEO) OSCAR satellites use frequency modulation (FM). These are also commonly referred to as "FM LEOs" or the "FM Birds". Such satellites act as FM amateur radio repeaters that can be communicated through using commonly available amateur radio equipment. Communication can be achieved with handheld transceivers using manual doppler correction. Satellite passes are typically less than 15 minutes long. The names of

272-451: Is published by AMSAT . AMSAT has not been actively involved in the launch and operation of most amateur satellites in the last two decades beyond allocating an OSCAR number. The first amateur satellite, simply named OSCAR 1, was launched on December 12, 1961, barely four years after the launch of the world's first satellite, Sputnik I . The satellite had to be built in a very specific shape and weight, so it could be used in place of one of

306-594: The OSCAR series of satellites. Other informally affiliated national organizations exist, such as AMSAT Germany (AMSAT-DL) and AMSAT Japan (JAMSAT). AMSAT was founded in 1969 in Washington, D.C. to continue the efforts begun by Project OSCAR . Its first project was to coordinate the launch of OSCAR 5 , constructed by students at the University of Melbourne . Some design modifications were needed and were made by AMSAT members, and

340-450: The satellite . The satellite in turn, will be receiving the uplink signal at a higher frequency than normal so the ground station's transmitted uplink frequency must be lower to be received by the satellite. After the satellite passes overhead and begins to move away, this process is reversed. The downlink frequency will appear lower and the uplink frequency will need to be adjusted higher . The following mathematical formulas relate

374-590: The 435-438 MHz band is particularly popular for amateur/educational small satellites such as Cubesats. AMSAT AMSAT is a name for various amateur radio satellite organizations worldwide. In particular, it often refers to the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation , headquartered in Washington, D.C. AMSAT organizations design, build, arrange launches for, and then operate (command) satellites carrying amateur radio payloads, including

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408-586: The AMSAT P5A mission to Mars , which also have ARM CPUs. Emulators for both the classic 16-bit and the 32-bit IPS language and development environment are available for many other systems. From its first launch, AMSAT projects have had international scope. By 2006, 21 countries had launched an amateur satellite. Many of these countries have their own AMSAT affiliate, some of which are noted below: The AMSAT Phase system describes an amateur satellite based upon its capabilities or mode of operation and roughly parallel

442-467: The Doppler shift to the velocity of the satellite. Due to the complexity of finding the relative velocity of the satellite and the speed with which these corrections must be made, these calculations are normally accomplished using satellite tracking software . Many modern transceivers include a computer interface that allows for automatic doppler effect correction . Manual frequency-shift correction

476-474: The Earth's atmosphere (or never successfully left it). The country listing denotes the country that constructed the satellite and not the launching country. Currently, 30 countries have launched an OSCAR satellite. These countries, in chronological order by date of launch, include: SuitSat , an obsolete Russian space suit with a transmitter aboard, was officially known as "AMSAT-OSCAR 54". Coincidentally, "Oscar"

510-443: The Earth's atmosphere. The country listing denotes the country that constructed the satellite and not the launching country. AMSAT built a series of five 1U CubeSats to carry university experiments, including a camera, and mode U/V FM repeaters. The first two of these satellites, Fox-1A, and Fox-1B, were launched on 8 October 2015 and 18 November 2017 respectively and are currently operational and available for use. Fox-1D (AO-92)

544-612: The University of Maine announced that an LTM would be provided for the University of Maine's MESAT1 CubeSat, Maine's first small satellite. Additionally, AMSAT supports amateur radio on human spaceflight missions as a supporting partner of Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). This partnership includes support for future missions on the Lunar Gateway . AMSAT also supports STEM education and has developed

578-511: The airplane-based tests. Once it was found to be operative and reliable, the satellite was shipped to Kennedy Space Center, where it was mounted in the launch vehicle's third stage. OSCAR 10's dimensions were: Height: 1.35 m (53 in) Width: 2.0 m (78.75 in) Weight: 140 kg at launch; 90 kg post engine firings. Other programs besides OSCAR have included Iskra (Soviet Union) circa 1982, JAS-1 (Fuji-OSCAR 12) (Japan) in 1986, RS (Soviet Union and Russia), and CubeSats . (There

612-472: The components for OSCAR 10 were "off the shelf". Jan King led the project. Solar cells were bought in batches of 10 or 20 from Radio Shack , and tested for efficiency by group members. The most efficient cells were kept for the project; the rest were returned to RadioShack. Once ready, OSCAR 10 was mounted aboard a private plane, and flown a couple of times to evaluate its performance and reliability. Special QSL cards were issued to those who participated in

646-516: The development of amateur satellites. Most amateur satellites do not receive their sequential OSCAR designation until after they are successfully in orbit, and then only at the request of the launching organization. Regardless, amateur satellites will have been named by the organization that constructed it, and that name is frequently prepended to its OSCAR designation, resulting a name such as CubeSat-OSCAR 57. In conversation, names are usually abbreviated as CO-57 or similar. A unique amateur satellite

680-466: The high orbital speed of the amateur satellites, the uplink and downlink frequencies will vary during the course of a satellite pass . This phenomenon is known as the Doppler effect . While the satellite is moving towards the ground station, the downlink frequency will appear to be higher than normal. Hence, the receiver frequency at the ground station must be adjusted higher to continue receiving

714-460: The launch vehicle ballast weights. OSCAR 1 was the first satellite to be ejected as a secondary payload (the primary payload was Discoverer 36 ) and to subsequently enter a separate orbit. It carried no on-board propulsion and its orbit decayed quickly. Despite orbiting for only 22 days, OSCAR 1 was an immediate success and led to follow-on missions. Over 570 amateur radio operators in 28 countries forwarded observations to Project OSCAR. Most of

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748-460: The majority of service-allocations stipulated in this document were incorporated in national Tables of Frequency Allocations and Utilisations which is within the responsibility of the appropriate national administration. The allocation might be primary, secondary, exclusive, and shared. In addition to the formal allocations in the main table such as above, there is also a key ITU-R footnote RR 5.282 that provides for additional allocations:- Of these,

782-463: The same purposes as those of the amateur service .» This radiocommunication service is classified in accordance with ITU Radio Regulations (article 1) as follows: Radiocommunication service (article 1.19) The allocation of radio frequencies is provided according to Article 5 of the ITU Radio Regulations (edition 2012). In order to improve harmonisation in spectrum utilisation,

816-533: The satellite was successfully launched on 30 January 1970, on a NASA Thor Delta launch vehicle. AMSAT's next launch was AMSAT-OSCAR 6 (AO-6) on 15 October 1972. AO-6 was AMSAT's first long-life satellite, and was built with participants from Australia and West Germany. Command stations in Australia , Canada , United Kingdom , Hungary , Morocco , New Zealand , the United States and West Germany controlled

850-557: The satellite, contributing greatly to its 4.5 years of service. Further launches continued to emphasize international cooperation, with AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) launching with a new transponder developed and built by Karl Meinzer and AMSAT Germany (AMSAT-DL). AMSAT Japan (JAMSAT) contributed a transponder to AMSAT-OSCAR 8 (AO-8). In order to launch its satellites, AMSAT has worked with space agencies and commercial launch contractors to develop new ways to take advantage of unused areas of launch vehicles. In return, AMSAT sometimes can negotiate

884-416: The satellites below are sorted in chronological order by launch date, ascending. The status column denotes the current operational status of the satellite. Green signifies that the satellite is currently operational, orange indicates that the satellite is partially operational or failing. Red indicates that the satellite is non operational and black indicates that the satellite has re-entered

918-413: The satellites below are sorted in chronological order by launch date, ascending. The status column denotes the current operational status of the satellite. Green signifies that the satellite is currently operational, orange indicates that the satellite is partially operational or failing. Red indicates that the satellite is non operational and black indicates that the satellite has re-entered

952-475: The science of satellite communications. Contributions include the launch of the first satellite voice transponder (OSCAR 3) and the development of highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. The Amateur Radio Satellite community is very active in building satellites and in finding launch opportunities. Lists of functioning satellites need updating regularly, as new satellites are launched and older ones fail. Current information

986-412: The series, GOLF-TEE, expected to launch in 2022. The GOLF series is designed to test technologies for future high Earth orbit (HEO) missions. AMSAT also offers a communications platform for university CubeSats. The AMSAT Linear Transponder Module (LTM) includes a VHF/UHF telemetry beacon, command receiver, and linear transponder. The first LTM flew on HuskySat-OSCAR 107 in 2020. In July 2020, AMSAT and

1020-495: The structure X/Y where X is the uplink band and Y is the downlink band. Occasionally, the downlink letter is rendered in lower case (i.e., X/y ). With a few exceptions, the letters correspond to IEEE's standard for radar frequency letter bands... Prior to the launch of OSCAR 40, operating modes were designated using single letters to indicate both uplink and downlink bands. While deprecated, these older mode designations are still widely used in casual conversation. Due to

1054-497: Was SuitSat , an obsolete Russian space suit with a transmitter in it, which was launched in 2006 from the International Space Station . In a twist of fate, "Oscar" was the name given to an obsolete space suit by its young owner in the 1958 novel Have Space Suit, Will Travel , by Robert A Heinlein . This book was originally published a year after the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 . The names of

Amateur radio satellite - Misplaced Pages Continue

1088-678: Was launched on 12 January 2018 on the PSLV-C40 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota , India . Fox-1Cliff was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard the SpaceX Falcon-9 SSO-A rocket on 3 December 2018. These four Fox satellites contain FM transponders with uplink on the 70 cm band and downlink on the 2 metre band. RadFxSat-2/Fox-1E, a variation of the Fox-1 series, carrying

1122-656: Was specifically written for the RCA 1802 AMSAT Phase III satellite. The IPS threaded code language, developed for AMSAT Phase III, is the first known use of a high-level language on board a spacecraft. Another 16-bit IPS implementation was specifically developed to run on the ARM CPU in the IHU-2 on the AMSAT P3D. A 32-bit IPS implementation has been developed for the AMSAT P3E satellite and

1156-619: Was the name given to an obsolete space suit by its young owner in the 1958 novel Have Space Suit—Will Travel , by Robert A. Heinlein . This book was first published a year after the launch of Sputnik 1 , the world's first artificial satellite. Amateur-satellite service (also: amateur-satellite radiocommunication service ) is – according to Article 1.57 of the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Radio Regulations (RR) – defined as « A radiocommunication service using space stations on earth satellites for

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