Fox-1 Model

They will be available at the AMSAT booth for a recommended donation of $25.  All proceeds will go to supporting the Fox Project.

Comparison of new OLED (top) and old LCD (bottom) displays

Current LVB Tracker owners may update their own units. The OLED displays used are manufactured by Newhaven, NHD-0216KZW series, and are available from Mouser and other online parts suppliers.   The OLED displays have less depth so the PEM fasteners need to be shortened for correct fit and viewing thru the front of the case.  The LVB Tracker firmware will also require updating.  Current owners may send their LVB Tracker to WB8CXO for retrofit if they don’t wish to do the modifications themselves.  Upgrading existing trackers will be $50 + shipping.  Contact WB8CXO for upgrade details.

AMSAT would like to acknowledge the many contributors to this effort.  Mike Young, WB8CXO for his vision and initiative to develop this update.  John Drago, W8FAA modified the LVB Tracker firmware to support the OLED display.  Ken Baker from Ridge Machine manufactured the PEM fastener cutting jig.  Steve Belter, N9IP, Mark  Hammond, N8MH and John Papay, K8YSE did beta testing. And finally Gould Smith, WA4SXM, LVB Tracker project manager for his continuous guidance and support.

Details on the Tracker may be found at www.lvbtracker.com.

Information on this and other AMSAT social activities at Dayton can be found at:

AMSAT Dayton Social Activities

A PDF file of the Hara Convention Center, including the new Ball Arena layout can be found here.

It is time to submit nominations for the upcoming open seats on the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors. A nomination requires either one Member Society or five current individual members in good standing to nominate an AMSAT-NA member for the position. Four director’s terms expire this year: Barry Baines, WD4ASW, Alan Biddle, WA4SCA, Drew Glasbrenner, K04MA, and Tony Monteiro, AA2TX.

In addition to traditional submission of written nominations, which remains unchanged and is the preferred method, nominations may be made by electronic means. These include e-mail, FAX, or electronic image of a petition. Electronic petitions should be sent to MARTHA@AMSAT.ORG or faxed to 301-608-3410. Written nominations, consisting of names, calls and individual signatures should be mailed to: AMSAT-NA, 850 Sligo Ave #600, Silver Spring, MD, 20910.

No matter what means is used, petitions MUST arrive no later than June 15th at the AMSAT-NA office. If the nomination is a traditional written nomination, no other action is required. If it is other than this, i.e. electronic, a verifying traditional written petition MUST be received at the AMSAT-NA office at the above address within 7 days following the close of nominations on June 15th. ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS WITHOUT THIS SECOND, WRITTEN VERIFICATION ARE NOT VALID UNDER THE EXISTING AMSAT-NA BYLAWS.

Photo credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation

Three PhoneSat cubesats will be aboard the Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares(TM) rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in eastern Virginia. Orbital Sciences reports on their website the soonest that the Antares rocket can be ready to retry the launch is April 19. The launch on April 20 was postponed because of unfavorable weather conditions. The next launch attempt is currently scheduled for April 21 at 2100 UTC. The launch will be broadcast on NASA TV. The April 17 launch attempt was scrubbed.

Phonesat carries an amateur radio payload on 437.425 MHz, was chosen as one of the winners in the Aerospace category for the Popular Science magazine “Best of What’s New 2012″ awards. The PhoneSat is a technology demonstration mission consisting of three 1U CubeSats intended to prove that a smartphone can be used to perform many of the functions required of a spacecraft bus.

The satellite is built around the Nexus smartphone which will be running the Android operating system and will be enclosed in a standard 1U cubesat structure. The main function of the phone is to act as the Onboard Computer, but the mission will also utilize the phone’s SD card for data storage, 5MP camera for Earth Observation, and 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis magnetometer for attitude determination.

One of the nanosatellites, powered by the HTC Nexus One smartphone, will send back pictures of Earth. The other two, running on the Samsung Nexus S, will have two-way S-band radio allowing them to be controlled from Earth.

With a short lifetime of only about one week, the satellites have no solar cells and operate on battery only.

An article on SpaceRef.com describes the Antares test flight, dubbed the A-ONE mission, as the first of two missions Orbital is scheduled to conduct in 2013 under its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Space Act Agreement with NASA. Following a successful A-ONE launch, Orbital will carry out a full flight demonstration of its new Antares/Cygnus cargo delivery system to the International Space Station (ISS) around mid-year. In addition, the company is also scheduled to launch the first of eight operational cargo resupplymissions to the ISS in 2013 under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. All COTS and CRS flights will originate from NASA’s WFF, which is geographically well suited for ISS missions and can also accommodate launches of scientific, defense and commercial satellites to other orbits. The Antares medium-class launch system will provide a major increase in the payload launch capability that Orbital can provide to NASA, the U.S. Air Force and other customers.

The Antares launch includes the commercial DOVE-1 satellite, a technology development experiment. The satellite had requested IARU coordination for a 1 watt transmitter on 145.825 MHz to downlink a 1200 baud AFSK AX.25 beacon with telemetry and health data. The AMSAT News Service reported in ANS-027 that according to the IARU DOVE-1 will no longer be using frequencies in the amateur radio bands.

NASA and AMSAT-UK have posted related news items.

[ANS thanks SpaceRef, AMSAT-UK, and Oribital Sciences for the above information]

Radio amateurs are asked to listen for STRaND-1 transmitting a 9k6 bps AX.25 signal around 437.568 MHz (+/- Doppler) over the next few days. Please report any positive results to C.P.Bridges[at]surrey.ac.uk

STRaND-1
http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/strand-1/

STRaND-1 telemetry beacon
http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/stran…d-1-telemetry/

STRaND-1 videos
http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/strand-1/strand-1-videos/

Photo of the combined MIHS, Cal Poly, and NASA teams as they did their first integrated testing of the StangSat satellite at Kennedy Space Center.

Information Week published news of the Merritt Island High School team who developed StangSat.

The fourth round of selections in NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative also included a team of high school students at the Merritt Island High School in Brevard County, Florida. They plan to build a cubesat containing two accelerometers to measure the amount of vibration in the Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer, or P-POD case that holds the cubesats during launch and then deploys them.

The high school is partnering with students at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The Cal-Poly CubeSat, dubbed CP9, is actually two cubes that contain accelerometers, plus a radio to transmit data back to Earth for the high school students to analyze. The Merritt Island High School cubesat, named StangSat, will stream data to the CP9 in real time during the launch using Wi-Fi.

“We’re going to be demonstrating that wireless transmissions inside the P-POD aren’t going to harm the launch,” said Adam Darley, a senior at Cal-Poly who is serving as the CP9 project manager. “If we can demonstrate that, then it will act as a platform to being able to stream information without a radio link.”

The Merritt Island High School Cubesat team has more information and photos posted on their Facebook page.