Stig Östlund

torsdag, januari 20, 2011

ARLS001 NASA Seeks Amateur Radio Operators' Aid to Listen for Nanosatellite's Beacon Signal‏

SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS001ARLS001 NASA Seeks Amateur Radio Operators' Aid to Listen for Nanosatellite's Beacon Signal ZCZC AS01 QST de W1AW Space Bulletin 001 ARLS001 From ARRL Headquarters Newington, CT January 20, 2011 To all radio amateurs SB SPACE ARL ARLS001ARLS001 NASA Seeks Amateur Radio Operators' Aid to Listen for Nano satellite's Beacon Signal On Wednesday, January 19 at 1630 UTC, engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama confirmed that the NanoSail-Dnano satellite ejected from Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite (FASTSAT). According to NASA, the ejection event occurred spontaneously and when engineers at Marshall identified and analyzed onboard FASTSAT telemetry; the ejection of NanoSail-D also has been confirmed by ground-based satellite tracking assets. NASA is asking radio amateurs to listen on 437.270 MHz for the signal and verify NanoSail-D is operating. Hams should send information to the NanoSail-D dashboard via the web at, http://nanosaild.engr.scu.edu/dashboard.htm . NASA said that the NanoSail-D science team is hopeful the nanosatellite is healthy and can complete its solar sail mission."This is great news for our team," said Dean Alhorn, Nano Sail-Dprincipal investigator and aerospace engineer at the MarshallCenter. "We're anxious to hear the beacon which tells us that NanoSail-D is healthy and operating as planned. The science team ishopeful to see that NanoSail-D is operational and will be able tounfurl its solar sail." As of Thursday, January 20, the NanoSail-D dashboard is reporting that beacon data has been received, but NASAstill wants amateurs to track and report the signals. On December 6, 2010, NASA triggered the planned ejection ofNanoSail-D from FASTSAT. At that time, the team confirmed that the door successfully opened and data indicated a successful ejection. Upon further analysis, however, the team found no evidence of Nano Sail-D in low-Earth orbit (LEO), leading them to believeNanoSail-D remained inside FASTSAT. The FASTSAT mission hascontinued to operate as planned with the five other scientificexperiments operating nominally. "We knew that the door opened and it was possible that NanoSail-Dcould eject on its own," said FASTSAT Project Manager MarkBoudreaux. What a pleasant surprise we had Wednesday morning whenour flight operations team confirmed that NanoSail-D is now a freeflyer." If the deployment is successful, NASA said that NanoSail-D will stayin LEO between 70 and 120 days, depending on atmospheric conditions. NanoSail-D is designed to demonstrate deployment of a compact solarsail boom system that could lead to further development of this alternative solar sail propulsion technology and FASTSAT's ability to eject a nanosatellite from a micro-satellite -- while avoiding re-contact with the FASTSAT satellite bus. NNNN/EX

Bloggarkiv