ISS Deployment (JAXA) - 2021-10-06 08:50 UTC - 11:00 UTC

Hi everyone, we got some weak signal during a CUAVA-1 pass: SatNOGS Network - Observation 4825265

The TLE seems slightly off.

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Unfortunately this isn’t CUAVA-1. At that time CUAVA-1 was deployed but it wasn’t transmitting yet.

For the next couple of hours we expect the ISS TLE set, that we use, to describe the signals curve pretty good. So, you shouldn’t expect such a curve in waterfall exactly after the deployment, for example check how straight is the signals curve in this Maya observation.

Keep watching! :slight_smile:

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A quick update for this deployment:

Only Maya-3 and Maya-4 have been heard. Unfortunately no receptions from CUAVA-1 and Binar-1.
For the two Maya satellites, only CW transmitter is active, so I have updated DB by making inactive the other transmitters.

@ivercairns When do we expect to see beacons from CUAVA-1? Was it meant to beacon from deployment, or only after command from a ground station?

Hi Mark,

we expect to see beacons every 30 seconds after the radio and the spacecraft turn on (after the kill switches are released and the 30-minute waiting period expires, the approximate sequence is that the EPS turns on, the satellite charges up sufficiently, the OBC boots, various system checks occur including whether the battery voltage is sufficient for the burn circuit, the antennas are deployed via a burn circuit, and the radio is enabled).

As far as I know we do not require the beacons to be triggered by a groundstation command.

The satellite may well be charging still. We expect that acquiring the satellite may take 1-2 weeks, although we hope it won’t.

Best wishes,

Iver.

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We have TBA(To Be Assigned) TLE sets from space-track.org for all the satellites, still they are too close to fit something for sure, so below is the random choice of NORAD IDs to follow for now in Network:

Satellite Temporary NORAD ID NORAD ID to follow
Binar-1 99520 49275
CUAVA-1 99521 49272
Maya-3 99522 49274
Maya-4 99523 49273

The TLE sets are now assigned, CUAVA-1 has been identified in space-track.org, probably based on its size and the different deployment time, however we haven’t receive anything from it, so we are going to wait before identifying it. Binar also hasn’t been received. Mayas are both transmitting but still they are too close for identification. Here are the changed NORAD IDs we follow in DB and Network for now:

Satellite Temporary NORAD ID NORAD ID to follow
Binar-1 99520 49272
CUAVA-1 99521 49275
Maya-3 99522 49273
Maya-4 99523 49274
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I have observed a very faint carrier, which from the Doppler could fit to CUAVA-1
https://network.satnogs.org/observations/4828171/
However, could also be a spurious from ISS or one of the other new satellites.
Perhaps someone with highgain antenna could check…

73s Peter

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This looks more like local noise to me… especially since it’s not getting stronger directly overhead where you would expect.

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If it would be local noise, there should be Doppler on it. I can see small straight carrier up to the time where Doppler should be high.
The Antenna I use has much less gain overhead favor lower elevation, which means signals might not be much stronger overhead and we do not know the spacecraft attitude.
But who knows, just mentioning to keep an eye on it…

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Decoded data on the linked observations in combination with their timestamp are those that allowed to separate each one.

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Binar-1 after some commands from the station at 2021-10-21 09:21:15 started transmitting with different baudrate(1k2 instead of 9k6). More details can be found in this thread.
There was also confirmation by Tetsu-JA0CAW:

and also by @EA4GPZ, in a discussion on twitter with @PE0SAT :

The satellite has stopped transmitting since 2021-10-22 08:33, you can check the last good observations here.

This one-day transmission allowed us to identify Binar-1 and the remaining, but not yet received, CUAVA-1.

Satellite NORAD OBJECT NORAD ID Notes
Binar-1 OBJECT SR 49272 here are the results of ikhnos on observation 4891487
Maya-3 OBJECT SS 49273 here are the results of ikhnos on observation 4855203
Maya-4 OBJECT ST 49274 here are the results of ikhnos on observation 4855245
CUAVA-1 OBJECT SU 49275 Identified as all the other objects from the deployment has been identified through observations

The CUAVA-1 was already identified in space-track.org catalog, but we didn’t have a way until now to confirm it. That identification was based on observation data related with its deployment time and its (different from the rest satellites) size.

EDIT:
I missed to add @Zathras tweet which shows a discussion with the satellite team:

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