Here is available the mission overview of this launch:
and the site:
https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/next-launch/atlas-v-landsat-9
There are two satellites that have been added in DB:
For CUTE details there are info from the team through @nsdecicco in this thread.
@kerel has generated a preliminary TLE set based on the launch details, after some final checking will be posted here in the thread.
Preliminary TLE set for the cubesats, generated by @cgbsat, thanks also to @kerel for his help:
CUTE
1 99510U 21270.75833333 .00000000 00000-0 50000-4 0 03
2 99510 98.2200 336.0000 0009077 0.0001 115.0000 14.66327431 07
For the first 6h I’ve scheduled observations for both satellites. Given that CuPID transmits after command from its ground station, it has less observations scheduled than CUTE.
EDIT: Have in mind that this TLE set is an estimation, to station owners please don’t schedule far away in the future until we have a more accurate TLE set.
Hi fredy,
Arika Egan here of the CUTE science team. CUTE will begin beaconing approximately 35 minutes after deployment from its dispenser.
Regarding CuPID, we met with them at the launch from VSFB and they’ve told us that their spacecraft is, unfortunately, not configured to beacon.
Thanks for the TLE also–we will share what we have about as soon as we get something from GSFC/Parsons. And thanks doubly for scheduling hella observations for CUTE! Our own operators are standing by to try to make contact at the first passes; we can let you know when we get our first telemetry.
Welcome @aregan!
Given the on time launch, the deployment time and the 35min delay… this means that beaconing of CUTE will start around 21:06 UTC. There are several scheduled observations at that time, so good chance to receive the first beacons.
About CuPID, thanks for confirming our findings that transmits only after commands, we will schedule it only over US. What is interesting is that they will have GFSK at 38k4 rate which is unusual for UHF frequency, wondering if this will be their default rate for downlink or they will start with a lower one and increase it through commands.
About the TLE set, as soon as we have a more accurate one, it will help a lot to have better observations. Good luck with your mission!
@aregan CUTE is alive… there are some decoded data already before the pass ends… more details in a new post: SatNOGS Network - Observation 4788335
Multiple stations have received CUTE, some of them managed to decode it! The first decoded frame at 21:06:18 came from 2136 - IU2JWG - Oltrepò Space Ground Station OMNI in observation 4788335.
@aregan congratulations on your successful deployment!
A TLE set for Landsat 9 has been published as TBA(To Be Assigned) in space-track.org:
0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 49260U 21088A 21270.87215959 -.00000048 00000-0 00000+0 0 9990
2 49260 98.1709 339.5296 0006244 1.6894 357.5466 14.64021953 10
This is a little more accurate than the preliminary one, so we are going to use it for the next hours, until we have something better.
Any feedback on how closely the CUTE observations so far have tracked with the prelim TLE posted for Object 99510?
Thanks!
-Scott, K4KDR
Pretty well for the data we had to generate the TLE set. For example check this observation SatNOGS Network - Observation 4788289 some minutes ago.
However we still need something more accurate, especially for decoding.
Sounds good - thanks!
East Coast U.S. pass in an hour based on the prelim TLE, but only modest elevation for me. Others will likely have a better chance, but I’ll be watching regardless!
~0200 UTC, U.S. East Coast:
Based on report from JA0CAW, I was tracking 3 minutes earlier than prelim TLE posted above.
That was not enough - more like 6 minutes would have been closer. Between low elevation & incorrect antenna pointing, I was just barely able to make out the packets (‘if’ blips seen were from CUTE). Hope for better when the elevation is higher & TLE’s have been identified. Best of luck to everyone!
New TLE set generated for CUTE by @EelkeVisser and some precious help of @cgbsat:
CUTE
1 99510U 21271.15496300 .00000000 00000-0 50000-4 0 07
2 99510 98.0299 338.9387 0001000 0.0000 91.1154 15.01454597 07
As this TLE set describes an object that it is far away from the previous one, I’ve removed all the future observations of CUTE and I’ve re-scheduled them.
I posted this in the other thread as well, but here is the most recent Goddard TLE from this morning (~10 AM UTC-6:00):
1 99999U 21271.77083333 .00145021 00000-0 11565-1 0 00007
2 99999 097.6135 339.7814 0024140 250.2663 283.5278 15.00181134000153
EDIT: Also see this comment from myself from the other thread:
By the way, we just had a pass in the past ~30 minutes over Boulder, CO, and we tried using the most recent TLE that Goddard gave us, only to find that the current SatNOGS TLE outperformed it by about 5dB of extra signal
In good news–we managed to get two commands in! Both were to increase the beacon rate to 4 seconds. Note that these are automatically overridden after about 5 minutes by an internal macro, so the next observations obtained by SatNOGS ground stations will see beacons at 16 second intervals again.
Hi Nick, I am surprised that our tle works much better than the Nasa one. We based it first on a tle we believe is Landsat 9, updated that with the STRF measurements I did. This worked quite good. But @cgbsat suggested and helped to make a tle from scratch. Also @fredy was checking the intermediate tles to the observation that where already in the network. In the end we settled on our tle based on 4 passes which looked like:
According to Jonathan McDowell, there where two other cube sats. Cesium Sat 1 and 2 (Cesium Space, Austin, TX).
There are “To Be Assigned”(TBA) TLE sets from space-track.org for all the satellites from this launch:
Running ikhnos on our observations for CUTE it looks like that the best fit is OBJECT D(49263), with OBJECT E(49264) follow closely.
As the TLE are in TBA status, we should wait to identify CUTE. But for now in DB and Network CUTE will follow OBJECT D(49263).
With the assumption that CuPID was deployed at the same time with CUTE (@aregan or @nsdecicco could you confirm that?) and the the other objects are not close, I’ve changed CuPID to follow OBJECT E(49264).
According to Jonathan McDowell, there where two other cube sats. Cesium Sat 1 and 2 (Cesium Space, Austin, TX).
Yes, that is correct. But these are commercial missions that I don’t believe beacon on amateur bands. My understanding is that these are meant to be test bed missions for Cesium’s Nightingale 1 Ka band radio.
With the assumption that CuPID was deployed at the same time with CUTE (@aregan or @nsdecicco could you confirm that?) and the the other objects are not close, I’ve changed CuPID to follow OBJECT E(49264).
IIRC I believe the order of deployment was:
(But I could be mis-remembering.)
I am not sure how much time elapsed between each deployment.
Thanks for the details… so for CuPID we will wait to receive it to be sure by scheduling observations over US.
We’re configured to track NORADID 49263 as CUTE now as well. We have a pass in about 8 hours but plan to receive only. We’ll command again at ~2021-09-29 16:38:00 UTC.
Hi all,
Emil here from the CuPID team. We are still working on establishing first contact with our satellite. We think our current challenge is just knowing where our satellite is. We have a few TLEs but none of them successful. CuPID is set at 400.5MHz and 38.4 downlink. These settings were decided upon years ago for some reason I am not aware of. We don’t beacon because of our frequency and license.
Thank you for looking for us up there. Once we establish contact we will certainly let this awesome community know!
