ISS CubeSat Deployment NRCSD#25 (Nanoracks) - 2023-04-24 12:05 and 12:15 UTC

[PE0SAT]

Decoding observation SatNOGS Network - Observation 7463174 I get the following output.
Looking at the callsign RS34S, this is Kuzbass-300 object 53375.

-> Packet from 2k4 FSK downlink
Container: 
    header = Container: 
        addresses = ListContainer: 
            Container: 
                callsign = u'R2ANF' (total 5)
                ssid = Container: 
                    ch = False
                    ssid = 0
                    extension = False
            Container: 
                callsign = u'RS34S' (total 5)
                ssid = Container: 
                    ch = False
                    ssid = 1
                    extension = True
        control = 0x00
        pid = 0xF0
    info = b'\x16B\x02\x00\x01\x00B\x00 \x15>\x15\x97\x0c \x00\x00\x004\x01L\x00\x00\x00\x1f\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xfb\xff\xfc\xff\xfb\xff\xfb\xff\x00 \x00\x00\xd8\x1e\x93\x02\x00\x00\xe4ZFd)\x04\x02\x01\xff\x83%\x1f#\x0e\xe5ZFd\x94\x02\x00\x00\x1e\x00\x0c\x1f' (total 74)

Jan PE0SAT

[ve6cnk-Charles]

Hi @fredy

I’ve been thinking and observing the locations of the six objects and I disagree with your conclusion. The current 6 TLEs show two groupings of 3 objects each.

56311, 56312, and 56313 are grouped together. This group is furthest away from the ISS. Also, their altitudes are:

56311 - 412.0km
56312 - 412.1km
56313 - 412.1km

56314, 56315, and 56316 are grouped together. This group is nearer the ISS than the other three. Their altitudes are:

56314 - 412.6km
56315 - 413.0km
56316 - 412.9km

Based on these two pieces of information alone, no orbital analysis, I would think that the two deployment batches are still correctly represented:

Ex-Alta-2, ArkSat 1, and Lightcube in the first group, which has traveled further from the ISS and dropped in orbit more.

Then Neudose, AuroraSat, and YukonSat in the second group, which was launched 10 minutes after the first group, so should be closer to the ISS and at a slightly higher altitude.

Thoughts?

It is possible that the size and mass differences between the six have caused some mixing, but I don’t think that would have happened within one week.

[undefined]

I think this reasoning makes sense, and NEUDOSE is categorized as 56315 on CelesTrak and SpaceTrak but SatNOGs is using 56311 (ARKSAT). Could these TLEs be swapped also?

[fredy]

@ve6cnk-Charles

Thoughts?

I’ve re-checked the latest more recent observations with signal from LightCube, all of them show that 56314 to 56316 fit better the signal.

Correct me if I’m wrong, given that the position error calculated using a TLE set is around 1km, so we can not say for sure that all these objects have different altitude with a big certainty.

About the order you are indeed right, the satellites deployed second in order should be closer to the ISS.

With all the above the only scenario I can think is that the satellites managed to get mixed.

So, I’m going to change in DB the NORAD IDs we follow for each satellite to the one that space-track.org suggests. Just to add two comments:

1. I have many doubts on the space-track.org identification, because there is no clue how and by who this happened while the objects were pretty close and with all of them not transmitting when the first TLE sets were published.

2. The objects are still close, so if any of the satellites transmit anything we are going to see it on its observations in Network. For the next couple of days, if we use the right TLE the signal will be at the center following a straight line, if we don’t then the signal will still be at the center but will follow a slight curve.

Saying all the above here is the updated status of the satellites:

Temporary NORAD ID	Satellite	NORAD ID to follow	Other NORAD IDs	Identified	Last Update
RECEIVED AND DEMODULATED
99172	NEUDOSE	56315	all	NO	Received but not heard since 2023-04-24 18:31 - change to follow 56315
RECEIVED
99165	LIGHTCUBE	56314	all	NO	Received but not heard since 2023-04-25 08:52 - change to follow 56314
NOT RECEIVED
99166	ARKSAT-1	56311	all	NO	Not received - change to follow 56311
99169	AURORASAT	56312	all	NO	Not received - change to follow 56312
99167	EX-ALTA 2	56313	all	NO	Not received - change to follow 56313
99168	YUKONSAT	56316	all	NO	Not received - change to follow 56316

[K4KDR]

Thanks for all the efforts around ID-ing these objects!

All I can add is that I’ve monitored 437.875 over the past few days during several very high (nearly overhead) passes and nothing has been heard from AuroraSAT / Ex-Alta 2 / YukonSat.

I am using an omni antenna that performs very well on 70cm, so in my case rotator pointing & object ID is not an issue.

[ve6cnk-Charles]

Hi @fredy ,

AlbertaSat has done some analysis and testing and decided that we will be attempting to switch communication with Northern Spirit satellites to 1200 baud instead of 9600 baud. Could you update this parameter for all three (Ex-Alta-2, AuroraSat, and YukonSat) effective immediately?

Kind regards,

Charles

[fredy]

I’ve updated the related transmitters in DB and Network.

@ve6cnk-Charles have in mind that you can login and suggest such changes directly in DB in the future. For how you can check this guide.

[BV2DQ]

Which one is work normally for beacon track?

[fredy]

Unfortunately none of the satellites of this deployment is currently active/alive. We are still tracking them in case any of them wakes up.

[ehalliwe]

Update from our (AlbertaSat’s) end on Ex-Alta 2/YukonSat/AuroraSat - we have still not heard anything. We thank everyone for their ongoing help

[VA6ISS]

I heard from the AlbertaSat team that high-gain antenna collaboration has heard all three U of A satellites. The radios seem to be on and beaconing, and the antennas may be deployed as well. I’ll try and verify locally where I am.

[VA6ISS]

I think I heard Yukonsat on my handheld!

[fredy]

@VA6ISS any suggestion for which TLE to follow from each of these objects?

[PE0SAT]

I went to 24 hours of STRF observations and found a signal that wasn’t id’d before.

So maybe one of the satellites on 437.875 following 56315 has come to live.

@fredy can you change the id followed for AuroraSat, Ex-Alta-2 and Yukon.

If the team could share some radio information we can also try to decode the signal to get confirmation

[VA6ISS]

That looks like a test where they were able to set one of the sats to beacon on 2 second frequency. Nice!

It seems like the team was using the AuroraSat, YukonSat, and NEUDOSE TLE sets. I will have to confirm that. (So 56312, 56315, 56316)

The team did update their website, although right now I think the radios are running headless and beaconing garbage data, and I suspect the RF parameters are not quite what are listed.

Amateur Radio Information

[PE0SAT]

I recorded Jul 15/16 two full passes over Europe but nothing received on 437.875.

Should they be active, or only after the team send them commands?

[VA6ISS]

They should be active on 30 second intervals. I don’t think the root cause of malfunction has been solved yet, so perhaps they are still misbehaving.

@fredy The team confirmed that 56312, 56315 and 56316 are the TLE’s that had beacons heard with the high gain antenna. We will likely not figure out the specific names of each until they can go through LEOP. Easiest would be to keep AuroraSat and YukonSat assigned properly, and give EX2 the TLE from NEUDOSE.

[K4KDR]

80° passes of AuroraSat & YukonSat USA-East, nothing heard

[VA6ISS]

I have access to the team’s results now, and it seems that they did have to “wake up” the radios. I will try to post timely updates here when I see that the team is sending commands with their high-gain antenna setup.

[PE0SAT]

Great, good to know.

I will keep an eye on the community post so we know when to try again.

Thanks for the support.