ISS CubeSat Deployment (2020-02-17): Phoenix, QARMAN, RadSat-U, Argus-2, AZTECHSAT-1

[sarah_srogers]

Hello, everyone!

In less than a week, the Phoenix CubeSat will be deploying from the ISS to begin the operations phase! Phoenix will deploy at 8:30 UTC on February 12, 2020.

Phoenix is a 3U CubeSat developed by Arizona State University to study the effects of Urban Heat Islands through infrared remote sensing. Following deployment, our operations team would appreciate as much help as possible with identifying the spacecraft and verifying that it is operational.

Information on Phoenix’s transceiver characteristics, AX.25 addressing, and instructions on how to decode housekeeping packets from the spacecraft can be found on our project website: Phoenix CubeSat

In addition, I would also like to call special attention to the fact that two CubeSats being deployed on this date operate on the same frequency. Both Phoenix and QARMAN share the frequency of 437.35 MHz and utilize an AX.25 9600 baud protocol with GMSK modulation. Both CubeSats will also be deployed within 1.5hrs of each other and expect to be close to each other in orbit. If you are listening for Phoenix’s or QARMAN’s packets, please be mindful of this coincidence. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out!

For more information on QARMAN, please see the post made by @amandine_on4eya here:

New CubeSat: QARMAN

Hello everyone, QARMAN, the re-entry CubeSat we developed at the von Karman Institute (VKI) in Belgium, is currently waiting deployment inside the ISS. According to the last update we received, the deployment in orbit is planned for the week of 20th January (to be confirmed and refined). Could you please add QARMAN to the database? It would be really nice to have a dashboard to visualize the beacon telemetry, but I don’t have the skills for that. Is there anyone willing to help? Here is the b…

[fredy]

Thanks for opening this thread, I fixed a little the title to include the rest of the satellites that will be deployed on the same day.

I’ve created the DB entries for all the satellites. Now we need to add the transmitters (feel free to suggest transmitters for these satellites, I’ll add missing ones later today or tomorrow). For more updates I’m going to update this thread.

[sarah_srogers]

Hi, Fredy,

Thank you kindly for taking care of this. I have suggested a transmitter for Phoenix (ID # 99828), though I didn’t fill in the “downlink/uplink drifted” zones. Does this indicate the bandwidth or just what is generally observed from doppler shifts? If I can clarify anything else about the transmitter, please feel free to reach out to me.

I noticed that there is already a cubesat called Phoenix in the DB. Would it be possible to call our cubesat something else, such as Phoenix CubeSat (ASU) or Phoenix (ASU)? I’m thought that might make it easier for others to record observations for our spacecraft without getting confused.

It also appears that the image shown of the other CubeSat listed under Phoenix (ie: ID # 42706) is actually an image of the very first render of our spacecraft, which I think may confuse people as well. Could you please delete the image from this entry? SatNOGS DB - PHOENIX

Speaking of images, I have attached a render of our CubeSat here as well for uploading to Phoenix’s page below. If you need a description for Phoenix’s page, you can use the following:

“Phoenix is a 3U CubeSat developed by students from Arizona State University to study the effects of Urban Heat Islands in US cities through infrared remote sensing. For more information, please visit http://phxcubesat.asu.edu/”

[fredy]

@sarah_srogers

Does this indicate the bandwidth or just what is generally observed from doppler shifts?

Drift fields are used only if a drift from the initial frequency is observed. So for now should be blank or the same frequency with the initial one. I’m going to check tomorrow the transmitters.

@sarah_srogers

I noticed that there is already a cubesat called Phoenix in the DB. Would it be possible to call our cubesat something else, such as Phoenix CubeSat (ASU) or Phoenix (ASU)?

Indeed, I missed that, I’ve renamed it to “Phoenix (ASU)”.

@sarah_srogers

It also appears that the image shown of the other CubeSat listed under Phoenix (ie: ID # 42706) is actually an image of the very first render of our spacecraft, which I think may confuse people as well. Could you please delete the image from this entry? SatNOGS DB - PHOENIX

Done thanks for the info!

@sarah_srogers

Speaking of images, I have attached a render of our CubeSat here as well for uploading to Phoenix’s page below. If you need a description for Phoenix’s page, you can use the following:

Image and description are updated, thank you!

[sarah_srogers]

To anyone monitoring this thread, I would like to announce that until further notice, the deployment date for these CubeSats has been moved to no earlier than 2/17 due to the delay of the Cygnus launch. I’ll get back with a new deployment time and date as soon as I know more information.

If by some small chance, deployment stays at tomorrow morning, I’ll let you know this as well, but it is highly unlikely.

[fredy]

Thank you for the info! I’m going to add in the next hour the transmitters to the satellites so to be ready if the deployment will be done tomorrow morning.

[fredy]

Transmitters have been added for all the satellites, also I’ve added AZTECHSAT-1 that will be in the same deployment.

@sarah_srogers and @amandine_on4eya please confirm that the transmitters for your satellites are well defined. Thank you!

[sarah_srogers]

Thank you for adding these for us! I suggested a few minor edits to our UHF transmitter, namely making it a transceiver, as we wish to encourage amateur participation with our spacecraft. I do want to note, however, that we don’t have S-Band transmitter. This was de-scoped from the project due to time constraints. Could you please remove the Mode S transmitter from the Phoenix page? https://db.satnogs.org/satellite/99828/

[fredy]

Fixed! Thanks for the extra info and the suggestions.

[sarah_srogers]

Following the successful launch of NG-13 today, the deployment of these CubeSats will be Wednesday February 19th, 2020! I’ve listed the CubeSats being deployed on this date as well as their deployment times in the table below

CubeSat	Downlink (MHz)	Uplink (MHz)	Deployment Time (UTC)
RadSat-u	437.425	437.425	7:10
Phoenix	437.35	437.35	9:35
QARMAN	437.35	437.35	11:20
CryoCube	2261	2082.004	12:55
AztechSat-1	437.3	437.3	12:55
SOCRATES	914.7	914.7	14:30
Argus-02	437.29	437.29	16:00
HARP	468	450	16:00
SORTIE	468	450	17:40

[DL4PD]

Very nice!

@sarah_srogers and @amandine_on4eya I am not yet done with the decoders integration for your cubesats, but I hope I can find the necessary time until Wednesday…

[fredy]

I’ve just finished scheduling observations for tomorrow (until 21:00 UTC) using ISS TLEs. I’ve tried to share equally the satellites observations on the stations of the Network.

Satellites that have been scheduled:
RadSat-u
Phoenix
QARMAN
AztechSat-1
Argus-02
HARP
SORTIE

For station owners that are going to schedule observations for these objects, please don’t forget to set custom horizon at 0 when you schedule as the TLE are temporary ones.

[tedder]

@fredy

I’ve just finished scheduling observations for tomorrow

thanks Fredy! I appreciate all the scheduling work you do. I see some of them scheduled on my station, it’ll be neat to see if data is received.

[sarah_srogers]

Not sure if this will reach people in time, but if anyone is interested, we will be live streaming Phoenix’s deployment via twitch here starting at 9:20 UTC: https://www.twitch.tv/phoenixcubesat/

Feel free to join in!

[amandine_on4eya]

Thanks Fredy!
Good luck to everyone, especially to our frequency buddy Phoenix!

You can watch QARMAN deployment at 11:20 UTC on our website: www.vki.ac.be

[fredy]

A quick update:

• RadSat-U is not heard until now.
• Phoenix is heard first by @sonny8 station in Observation 1720486 cc @sarah_srogers

Unfortunately not decoded, however with using direwolf on the next good observation (1721170) we have:

[0.4] (Not AX.25)WJ2XOY<0x00>KIOO7Y<0x00><0x03><0x00><0x84><0xa4><0xa1><0x00>hk:1,6,8.03,3.9M,3120350491,0.215,0.267,0.220,9.20,15,19,28,3,0,20,0,0,1
------
 dest    +%,',  0 c/r=0 res=0 last=0
 source  %$'' c/r=0 res=0 last=0
  000:  57 4a 32 58 4f 59 00 4b 49 4f 4f 37 59 00 03 00  WJ2XOY.KIOO7Y...
  010:  84 a4 a1 00 68 6b 3a 31 2c 36 2c 38 2e 30 33 2c  ....hk:1,6,8.03,
  020:  33 2e 39 4d 2c 33 31 32 30 33 35 30 34 39 31 2c  3.9M,3120350491,
  030:  30 2e 32 31 35 2c 30 2e 32 36 37 2c 30 2e 32 32  0.215,0.267,0.22
  040:  30 2c 39 2e 32 30 2c 31 35 2c 31 39 2c 32 38 2c  0,9.20,15,19,28,
  050:  33 2c 30 2c 32 30 2c 30 2c 30 2c 31              3,0,20,0,0,1
------

Audio input level is too high.  Reduce so most stations are around 50.
[0.3] (Not AX.25)WJ2XOY<0x00>KIOO7Y<0x00><0x03><0x00><0x84><0xa4><0xa2><0x00>hk:1,6,8.03,3.9M,3120350521,0.215,0.267,0.220,9.20,15,19,28,3,0,20,0,0,1
------
 dest    +%,',  0 c/r=0 res=0 last=0
 source  %$'' c/r=0 res=0 last=0
  000:  57 4a 32 58 4f 59 00 4b 49 4f 4f 37 59 00 03 00  WJ2XOY.KIOO7Y...
  010:  84 a4 a2 00 68 6b 3a 31 2c 36 2c 38 2e 30 33 2c  ....hk:1,6,8.03,
  020:  33 2e 39 4d 2c 33 31 32 30 33 35 30 35 32 31 2c  3.9M,3120350521,
  030:  30 2e 32 31 35 2c 30 2e 32 36 37 2c 30 2e 32 32  0.215,0.267,0.22
  040:  30 2c 39 2e 32 30 2c 31 35 2c 31 39 2c 32 38 2c  0,9.20,15,19,28,
  050:  33 2c 30 2c 32 30 2c 30 2c 30 2c 31              3,0,20,0,0,1
------

Audio input level is too high.  Reduce so most stations are around 50.
[0.4] (Not AX.25)WJ2XOY<0x00>KIOO7Y<0x00><0x03><0x00><0x84><0xa4><0xa3><0x00>hk:1,6,8.03,3.9M,3120350551,0.215,0.267,0.220,9.20,15,19,28,3,0,20,0,0,1
------
 dest    +%,',  0 c/r=0 res=0 last=0
 source  %$'' c/r=0 res=0 last=0
  000:  57 4a 32 58 4f 59 00 4b 49 4f 4f 37 59 00 03 00  WJ2XOY.KIOO7Y...
  010:  84 a4 a3 00 68 6b 3a 31 2c 36 2c 38 2e 30 33 2c  ....hk:1,6,8.03,
  020:  33 2e 39 4d 2c 33 31 32 30 33 35 30 35 35 31 2c  3.9M,3120350551,
  030:  30 2e 32 31 35 2c 30 2e 32 36 37 2c 30 2e 32 32  0.215,0.267,0.22
  040:  30 2c 39 2e 32 30 2c 31 35 2c 31 39 2c 32 38 2c  0,9.20,15,19,28,
  050:  33 2c 30 2c 32 30 2c 30 2c 30 2c 31              3,0,20,0,0,1
------

[mfalkvidd]

My station is a bit too far north, but should have an IQ file available shortly after https://network.satnogs.org/observations/1721167/ is done. ( about 10 minutes from posting this)

[s59mz]

Here is my observation:
https://network.satnogs.org/observations/1724747/

I’ve got something @sarah_srogers

[s59mz]

After decoding with DireWolf 1.5 I’ve got this: