October 21, 2011

PW-Sat to launch in January




PW-Sat, a 1U CubeSat to be launched on the first VEGA flight in January, will carry a 145 to 435 MHz Amateur Radio transponder.

The single channel transponder will operate in a similar way to AO-16. The uplink on 145.900 MHz will be FM and the downlink on 435.020 MHz will use the BPSK telemetry beacon transmitter to produce Double Sideband (DSB) that can be received on an SSB radio.

PW-Sat should be launched into a 1450 by 300km 69.5 degree orbit and may be expected to have a lifetime of about 2 years before re-entry. It was built by students of Warsaw University of Technology in cooperation with the Space Research Centre and will be Poland’s first satellite.

PW-Sat has five modes of operation:
1. Receive only mode – no downlink
2. Beacon CW mode – Downlink On-Off Keying (OOK) CW (1kHz) 12 WPM on 435.020 MHz
3. Beacon BPSK mode – Downlink BPSK (3 kHz) 1200 bps AX25 (1 frame on 20 sec) on 435.020 MHz
4. Control communication mode. Downlink BPSK (3 kHz) 1200 bps AX25 on 435.020 MHz
5. Voice Repeater mode (aka “AO16″ mode) – Uplink145.900MHz FM (15 kHz) Downlink 435.020MHz DSB (3 kHz)

Posted on October 21, 2011 by M5AKA at AMSAT.UK

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