Student satellite set to soar

The Bangalore Edition of the Times of India, dtd 28th April, 2010 had this report on the STUDSAT

Copied from the e-paper site of the Times of India. Unfortunately the Launch of the statellite has been postponed from the scheduled date of 9th May, 2010 due to some technical fault detected in the launch vehicle.  News on the rescheduled date is awaited.

Student satellite set to soar

Srinivas Laxman | TNN

Mumbai: On Wednesday morning, a unique Indian satellite that will rocket Indian education into a higher orbit will leave the Isro Satellite Centre in Bangalore and move to Sriharikota for integration with the four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) for launch on May 9.
    What makes this spacecraft called StudSat unique is that it is India’s smallest satellite weighing just around 850 grams designed and developed by about 40 undergraduate students of seven engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Of the seven, four are in Bangalore and three in Hyderabad. StudSat’s departure from Bangalore to Sriharikota coincides with a conference on small satellites to be held on April 28 at the satellite centre.
    StudSat, a portmanteau for student satellite, has been classified as a picosatellite which weighs between 0.1 and 1 kg. StudSat will be launched along with the indigenous Cartosat-2b satellite, Alsat, a satellite from Algeria, and two tiny satellites from the University of Toronto.
    StudSat will be the second Indian student satellite to be launched by Isro in the past one year. On April 20, 2009, the 40-kg Anusat designed and developed by the Chennai-based Anna University was placed in orbit. The difference between Anusat and StudSat is that while the former is a microsatellite which weighs between 10 kg and 100 kg, the latter is the country’s first picosatellite. In plain terms, it means that it is the smallest satellite to be launched by India.
    Chetan Dikshit, a student of the Bangalore-based Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, one of the key participating institutions in the space programme, told TOI the size of the satellite is 10cm x 10cm x 13.5cm. “Once launched, it will be placed in a 700-km sun-synchronous orbit and will have a mission life ranging between six months and two years. The project cost was Rs 55 lakh,’’ he said.
    With the increasing demand for miniaturization in space systems, there is a great need to develop a low-cost mission which can accomplish the goals of bigger satellites. Space experts said it is in this context a project like StudSat assumes significance.
    Dikshit, who is in charge of the project and finance management of the programme, said the main role of the tiny satellite will be remote sensing and imaging the Earth with a 90-metre resolution. Its only payload is a camera. Last week, the satellite was subjected to rigorous prelaunch tests at Isro’s Satellite Centre and it came out with flying colours, he said.
    Project director for StudSat, Jharna Mazumdar, said a ground-tracking station has been set up at the Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, which is already tracking 250 satellites.
    Jharna, a former DRDO scientist who teaches Computer Science at the Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, and its R&D dean, said the cost of setting up an R&D centre, a clean room and the ground station at the college premises was Rs 45 lakh. All the three units are connected to the StudSat project.
    What made them rembark on the space mission? Dikshit said: “We thought it would be a unique space venture. Space is, after all, still an untouched subject in India. We hope this mission will inspire students to opt for a career in space since it has provided them a hands-on experience in space technology,’’ he added.

SPACE ODYSSEY: A student of Bangalore’s Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology explains to space sage Prof U R Rao the features of StudSat, which will be launched from Sriharikota on May 9. Seven colleges — four from Bangalore and three from Hyderabad — have built the satellite at a cost of Rs 55 lakh

Indian Small Satellite Systems Conference -1 - A Report

This is the brief report on the just concluded Indian Small Satellite Systems Conference organised by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) which was attended by Colleges and others participating in or involved with Small Satellite Systems. 

One such Small Satellite is scheduled to be launced by ISRO on the 9th May, 2010. 

Technical Director of AMSAT INDIA, OM Pratap - VU2POP who attended the conference has circulated this report on the conference by email and the same is reproduced here for larger viewership.

(reproduced with permission of OM Pratap)

Hi All

Amsat India was invited to attend the Indian Small Satellite Systems Conference -1 conducted yesterday at ISRO Bangalore.

Amsat India was represented by Ganesan (our Hamsat 2 designer) and myself VU2POP. ISSSC was a one day Programme from 9 am to 5.30 pm. It was very interesting and as many papers were presented & topics discussed the time was short it got over by 7 pm.

One day is too short and hopefully next year it will be 2 days. However we thank ISRO for kick starting a very interesting platform for interaction of ISRO with various educational institutions including Amsat India who are into ham satellite projects.

Important topics were on the current Small satellite developments and the future trends of small satellites including Mini, Micro, Pico sats etc. Hamsat VO-52 too falls into the small sats, to add many students all over the world have been building student sats as projects and in India too, nearly 26 Universities have got into building student sats with various payloads.

Most Ednl. institutions already have a ham club and some institutions are now setting up ham clubs in their institutions to help learn more of ham satellite operations and facilitate building ham band payloads. As of now most of them are both digital with only beacon downlink and no voice transponder. In the next couple of months you will find many cube sats etc with experimental payloads launched.

Amsat India has 2 linear tranponder is ready and we Amsat India are asking ISRO for a higher orbit to cover a larger foot print and longer pass duration. It’s no use having another LEO as HAMSAT 1

Hamsat 1 will be celebrating its 5th birthday on 2 May and ISTRAC has been monitoring its health and its utilisation, they report that Hamsat 1 is in good health and should serve the hams for many more years.

In this regard there was an email by VU2WMY Mani a few days ago asking for USER feedback like utilisation & experiences by hams all over the world with Hamsat.

Please send in your reports, utilisation and experiences with Hamsat by email and the same will be forwarded to ISRO. Looking forward to all your reports comments.

We would like to thank ISRO for the HAMSAT 1 and we look forward to HAMSAT 2.

Finally we thank Programme Dir and Project Director - Small Satellite & Upagrah Amateur Radio Club (VU2URC) for the kind invitation to participate in the ISSSC-1 and we look forward to many such platforms for the development of small satellite systems with the participation Educational Institutions & Amsat India.

Pop

VU2POP

Dir Technical

Amsat India

Hams who attended VU2WMY, VU2GDX, VU2RVJ, Ganesan, Chandrasekhar new hams &myself VU2POP

All those who work through VO-52 are requested again to send in their User Opinion and Experiences to wmy@isac.gov.in or vu2mud@gmail.com;

My First DX QSL card for QSO through Satellite

I received my first DX QSL Card from OM Polkit - E29AJP

Eager to work many more and share the info on this blog

HO-68 Activation on FM - Schedule for this week.

Good news again for OSCAR Hunters.

Hope Oscar - HO-68 (XW-1) will be active on FM during this week. Check this link for full activation details.

Passes corresponding the VU are as under (Times and elevation angles are corresponding to Bangalore - Check exact times and elevations for your area)

29-Apr-10 @ 07:59:12 IST 4 Deg Elevation (Activation from 07:41 IST - Transponder will be on when the satellite comes into range)


Again On 29-Apr-10 @ 21:41:37 IST 76 Deg Elevation (Activation from 21:55 IST - Transponder will be swithced on 14 mins after the satellite comes into range - still time enough for a 3 minute access time)

We have no suitable passes corresponding to VU on the 30th.  Possible passes for 01st May and 2nd May will be updated by tomorrow.

This should be some fun.

Look out for some DX on AO-51

OM Guru - VU2GUR has received an email from OM Jim- ND9M that he will be QRV from Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean (Co-Ordinates - 7°18′48″S / 72°24′40″E) for the next couple of days with the call - VQ9JC

From the 29th April, 2010, he will be signing ND9M/MM from the international waters.

During this period he will be active on AO-51 - ECHO Satellite - especially when the satellite is coming up from the south.

This should be interesting - All the best guys - because on weekdays, AO-51 pass is usually before 1800 IST (1230 UTC)

Satellite activity for 24th April, 10

Day time activity was affected by frequent power cut.

AO-51 is on a different Mode - VHF uplink and S-Band Downlink - until tomorrow.  It will be back on VHF/UHF mode from 26th Apr.

Tried the VO-52 at 2103 IST and was able to work VU3STJ - 59 and VU2DPE - 59. 

It was an interesting night.  This pass was immediately followed by the SO-50 pass along with the HO-68 (ofcourse no FM activiation)

This is the screen shopt for the Orbitron Satellite tracking software showing the Passes.

Should try HO-68 @ 0902IST on 25th April for the FM activiation.

HAMSAT Transponder Performance and Utilization

May 5th 2010 is a red letter day for Indian Ham Radio Operators, especially those who are working through OSCARs - the 5th Anniversay of the Indian OSCAR - HAMSAT - VO52.

In this regard the Operations Director of HAMSAT is seeking details on the useage, utility and experiences of HAMS using the HAMSAT.  The email request is reproduced below.  Please share your experiences with all of us - so that we can compile a database of the users of VO-52 and their personal experiences.  This should go a long way in an early launch of HAMSAT-II.

Respond directly to VU2WMY or to this blog so that we can compile the responses at an early date and forward to the HAMSAT team.


(Email Reproduced with permission of VU2WMY)
Dear friends,


On behalf of the Programme Director, Mission Director, Operations Director and the entire "HAMSAT" project team, I convey their message to the Global Amateur Radio Satellite enthusiasts & users through my mail.

It gives us a great pleasure to inform the World Amateur Radio community that, on 4th May 2010, HAMSAT (VO-52) is completing 5 years of successful existence in Space rendering useful and fruitful services to the Amateur radio community.

We as well take this opportunity with great pleasure to inform the Global Amateur Radio community, that the overall system health and performance of "Hamsat" - "The gift from INDIA/ISRO to World of Ham Radio" is good and satisfactory.

To commemorate this mile stone achievement, we have intended to bring out a 'Comprehensive Performance & Utilization Report' of the payload (Transponder) based on the user feed backs from across the Globe. In this regard, we request all the Amateur Satellite Enthusiasts and users to kindly send us their feed backs about the performance and utilization of the transponder. A detailed report expressing their views, suggestions, comments, ratings and preferably a comparison note made with other linear transponders, those already been flown and currently available one's would be greatly appreciated.

The feed backs may kindly be copied to my mail ID as well.

I have herewith attached the mail received from Operation Director, HAMSAT.

Looking forward to hear from you all.

Thanking you

73 de

Mani, VU2WMY
Secretary & Station-In-Charge
Upagrah Amateur Radio Club VU2URC
ISRO Satellite Centre
Airport Road, Bangalore-560 017.
Phone:(O)91- 80-2508 2054/2192/2537
Mobile: 91-80-98803 41456
E-mail ID: wmy@isac.gov. in
vu2wmy_mani@ yahoo.com
isrohams@yahoo.com

----- Forwarded message from tprangan@istrac. org -----
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:00:58 +0530
From: tprangan@istrac. org
Reply-To: tprangan@istrac. org
Subject: HAMSAT Transponder Performance and Utilization - Reg.
To: wmy@isac.gov. in
Cc: tprangan@istrac. org

DEAR MR. SUBRAMANAI,

This is to bring to your kind attention that HAMSAT is COMPLETING 5 YEARS of successful existence in space. I am sure, HAMSAT continues to be the DARLING of the HAM Community.

To commemorate this event, ISTRAC is bringing out a "5-YEARS OF HAMSAT PERFORMANCE" Report. To make the report a comprehensive one, we would like to add the FOLLOWING INFORMATION.

1 PERFORMANCE of the HAMSAT TRANSPONDER as _perceived by the users_
2 COMPARISON of the HAMSAT Transponder with her CONTEMPORARIES
3 Details of SATELLITES providing SIMILAR SERVICES
4 Approximate NUMBER OF USERS of HAMSAT in _India / over the globe_
5 GROWTH of HAMSAT USERS, since launch
6 Approximate HAMSAT TRANSPONDER UTILISATION (transponder interaction period) over the globe (transponder is ON always)
7 Any more INTERESTING INFORMATION on HAMSAT

KINDLY _DO THE NEEDFUL_ BY CIRCULATING THIS REQUEST TO OUR HAM FRIENDS.

With Best Regards,
T.PARIMALARANGAN
Operations Director
HAMSAT