Falcon Heavy Launch 2019-06-25 03:30 UTC

#1

According to Nasa’s site a falcon heavy launch will be happening. Upon investigation on Gunter’s Space Page I found that it will also be carrying multiple Amateur Radio Sats.

Prox 1 ( Nanosat 7) - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=437
LightSail B - (Launching from Prox 1) - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=489
ARMADILLO - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=237
PSat-2 - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=473
BRICSat-2 - Nothing on IARU for this on. - Freqs listed here
CP-9 - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=481
Oculus-ASR - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=266
E-TBEx-a and E-TBEx-b - http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=502

Those are all the ones I found on the launch page. Might be more as I only found these by searching the name in the IARU lists.

TBEx launch - 25 June 2019 03:30 UTC
PSAT-2 Catalog Number
#2

Small update on the date. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/media-briefing-highlights-nasa-tech-on-next-spacex-falcon-heavy-launch

#3

E-TBEx-a and E-TBE-b format information https://exploration.engin.umich.edu/blog/?page_id=3257 Also has TLE the they should have. So this can help us get TLE for some other sats depending on how they are ejected from the Falcon Heavy.

#4

Hi Satnogs Community,

We have a launch coming up this Monday night and it would be great to get some help tracking, especially those first few beacons. The TBEx mission will be studying plasma bubbles near the equator. Initial details are here: https://exploration.engin.umich.edu/tbex/.

Launch time is scheduled for 24 June 2019 23:30 EDT / 25 June 2019 03:30 UTC. It’s a night launch of a Falcon Heavy. Should be spectacular.

Initial TLEs are:

TBEX-A
1 99999U          19176.14583333 -.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0 00003
2 99999 018.4191 246.4071 0199152 272.7138 083.2192 14.93077101000011
TBEX-B
1 99999U          19176.14583333 -.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0 00003
2 99999 018.3763 244.0391 0198052 272.2374 098.4396 14.93531636000011

Beacon is every 10s or so on the following frequencies. Beacon information, see link above.

  • TBEx-A @ 437.485 MHz
  • TBEx-B @ 437.535 MHz

Thanks,

–Jamie, KF6RFX

#5

Also, transmissions will be at 9600 bps, GMSK.

#6

I moved the posts on the already opened thread for the launch. I’m going to add the satellites during the weekend. @jwc Thanks for the extra info and the TLE.

In you thread you had a title that the launch is going to happen on 2019-06-25, is there any source for that change? My knowledge until now is that it wil go up on 2019-06-24.

#7

Depends on time zone. 24 June 2019 23:30 EDT / 25 June 2019 03:30 UTC.

SpaceX info page here: https://www.spacex.com/stp-2

Also updated info here: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/06/18/falcon-heavy-stp-2-launch-preps/

#8

:smiley: good point I didn’t notice!

As we always follow UTC, I’m going to change the title :slight_smile:

#9

It looks like that this is the coordination for BRICSat-2, aka USNA-P1.

#10

All satellites are created:
99965 - TBEX-A
99966 - TBEX-B
99967 - Prox-1
99968 - ARMADILLO
99969 - PSAT-2
99970 - BRICSat-2
99971 - CP9 (LEO)
99972 - Oculus-ASR
99973 - LightSail-2

I’ll continue with adding the transmitters…

Some interesting info:
Prox 1 signal encoding schema: http://prox-1.gatech.edu/beacon.html
LightSail-2 is going to be launched from Prox 1 ~1 week after the deployment
StangSat is going to deployed with CP9 LEO, both are going to measure and record launch parameters while being into their P-POD during the launch. As StangSat relies for communication to CP9 through WiFi both will be RF active during the launch, which is prohibited by cubesat specification, as an experiment.

#11

And then StangSat will not be active after ejection from the P-POD but it will still be ejected. So we will have atleast 1 more TLE then active satellite.

#12

20 Transmitters for the 9 satellites are in db.

Let me know if I missed something.

I’m going to add TLEs to satellites ~20h before launch, which means that we will be able to schedule them in network. Most of the satellites are in UHF so I’m going to schedule them almost equally. I’m going to schedule a few more observations for TBEx-A and TBEx-B as there is the request above and also is the only one that gave us initial TLEs.

These TLEs will be used for the rest of the satellites too and hopefully they will be enough.

Lightsail-2 will be deployed from prox-1 after 1 week, so its TLE will be added later. Maybe by then Prox-1 will have already a NORAD ID to follow. Until assigning TLEs, Lightsail-2 will not be available for scheduling.

#13

So do we have information on what sats are going into what orbits?

I see that TBEX-A/B are going into an 18 degree inclination orbit, which is going to rule out high-elevation observations from a lot of the european stations (and gives my station #232 in Australia a max elevation of maybe 12 degrees!).

#14

PSat-2 has some info about its orbit at http://aprs.org/psat2.html not sure if they are updated though.

#15

TBEx has updated TLEs, see below. These have an 28 degree inclination which will help a little with northern viewing.

TBEX-A
1 99999U          19176.14583333 -.00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0 00003
2 99999 028.5984 142.0410 0394051 105.4782 326.5543 14.97382750000019
TBEX-B
1 99999U          19176.14583333  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0 00002
2 99999 028.5867 140.7723 0394590 105.0870 326.8044 14.98003902000012
#16

Thanks for the info, I’ll take care of it and probably reschedule the observations.

#17

I’ll post new ones once we get the vectors from Spacex Post deployment.

#18

Everything rescheduled with the new TLEs, also we have available preliminary TLEs of PSat-2:

PSAT2
1 99999U          19176.15625000  .00001426  00000-0  27052-4 0 00004
2 99999 028.4525 150.8888 0388671 088.0149 091.1931 14.93486277000010

Unfortunately with no info for the rest of the satellites I’ve chosen randomly TLEs from the three available. As the TLE from PSat-2 and from TBEx A and B are giving orbits with significant difference, maybe the rest satellites are not heard immediately.

I’ll keep looking around for TLEs, please comment here if you find anything useful about the satellites and their orbits.

#19

Launch has slipped to 0630 UTC. I’m already tired!

#20

Newer TLEs for PSAT-2, all the future scheduled observations have been re-scheduled:

PSAT2
1 99999U          19176.29256686  .00000045  00000-0  73504-6 0 00000
2 99999 028.5512 188.7783 0390971 106.7788 082.4136 14.96430410000015