Hello space mission enthusiasts and amateur radio operators! We have a bittersweet announcement!
After nearly 540 days in-orbit, another one of our beloved SmallSats, CIRBE (Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment, which has been measuring energetic particles in the Earth’s magnetic field) will re-enter the atmosphere in the coming days. We’re continuing our “LASP SmallSatellite Eras Tour” Cosmic Concert by having CIRBE sing a goodbye song to the world! CIRBE successfully sang parts of the song around 2024/10/01 17:30 UTC, and will (hopefully) continue to do so while it is above Boulder, CO, USA until it re-enters. Can YOU decode the lyrics and figure out which song CIRBE is parodying as it sings farewell?
Since CIRBE may not have enough life left to sing the whole song, we also decided to have its little friend, CUTE (Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment, which looks at the atmospheres and magnetic fields of planets outside of the Solar System) duet the song with CIRBE! CUTE will be singing the same song as a so-long to its friend over the next week, not just above Boulder but all over the world!
Tip for non-radio-hobbyists: You can see what data other radio hobbyists decoded on the web! Check out the SatNOGS database and click through the observations to see if you can find the song.
Recall that in December of last year, CTIM (Compact Total Irradiance Monitor, which studied the Sun’s total light energy) also re-entered, and we decided to kick off the “LASP SmallSatellite Eras Tour” with CTIM “singing” a goodbye song to the whole world in its final days. To do this, our operations team uplinked a goodbye sea shanty, which CTIM then “sung” back to the world over the public amateur radio waves. Radio hobbyists in the US, Greece, Hungary, and Türkiye were able to capture and decode our little satellite’s song as it re-entered over Hawaii. Check out CTIM’s song here.
I listend in yesterday and today at 09:4x and 09:2x UTC, but none of the 40 decoded beacons contained a song.
Do you know how often (every x beacon) CUTE will send the songtext?
I have also -not- seen any CUTE frames containing the song lyrics, but on this morning’s pass here over the Eastern U.S., I noticed a period of much more rapid downlinks at the end of my pass (much too weak to decode, unfortunately).
I wonder if those frames contained the elusive ASCII text lyrics?
@dl7ndr , good update: we are trying to interleave some songs over Boulder in-between CUTE taking NUC spectra of Uranus this week. Hopefully, starting later today, CUTE will load up a new schedule that will include a few worldwide dumps of the song; I will post the times here once that is generated.
@dl7ndr and @K4KDR , if we are able to get stored commands loaded to CUTE in time and it doesn’t go to safe mode over the next few days, you can expect to see the song from CUTE at these UTC times:
2024/280-05:00 UTC for 1 hour every 20 minutes
2024/280-18:00 UTC for 1 hour every 20 minutes
2024/281-18:00 UTC for 1 hour every 20 minutes
With the altitude getting lower and lower, the downlink from CIRBE is massive! Downlink packets shown here received via a 2.5-turn helical omni antenna.
@LASP_SmallSatOps as we don’t have demodulated frames here to say for sure, could the visible signal be CUTE instead of CIRBE? Maybe the interval could help to find out?
CIRBE finally “retired” over Florida on 10/4/24. The goodbye song was decoded by SatNOGs stations in Colorado, Minnesota, and Arizona. Farewell, CIRBE!
Picture yourself on the auroral oval
With swift electrons and magnetic skies
A satellite calls you, you listen quite closely
A bird with REPTilian eyes
Magnetic fields of the Van Allen belts
Rippling over your head
Look for CIRBE with a dream so heartfelt
And she’s gone…
CIRBE in the sky with diamonds
CIRBE in the sky with diamonds
CIRBE in the sky with diamonds
Follow her down to the brisk Southern Ocean
Where McMurdo dishes watch mystical skies
Everyone smiles as she drifts by the station
That glows so incredibly bright
Emerald ribbons appear in the sky
Waiting to take her away
Soars down below with her head in the clouds
And she’s gone…
CIRBE in the sky with diamonds
CIRBE in the sky with diamonds
CIRBE in the sky with diamonds
Ah…
