New Satellites: Plan for SSO-A SmallSat Express Launch on December 3rd

Satellites & Observations Launches
61

Dear all,

I’m a member of the MOVE-II CubeSat team and we’re also operation the ‘Black Mensa Ground Station’ for reception. We did use SatNOGS the last two days to identify our satellite and confirm it working properly. Our first beacon was detected by 23 - Zath-VHF in Australia.

So first: We want to thank the community for making this possible with your amazing network!

I’ve a few inputs to the discussion

1st) Could you please rename MOVE 2 to MOVE-II ? :slightly_smiling_face:

2nd) I did suggest a few updates on our frequencies and would ask anyone authorized to update them.
To clarify:

  • CW should be on 145.950.000 and send frequent pilot beeps as well as the call sign ‘DP0MVE’
  • BPSK12k5 Telemetry messages are centered at 145.950.000 and use a bandwidth of 18.75 kHz (ideally from 145.940.000 to 145.960.000 after filtering, this is why we did try 937.5 to 962.5 with some margin) Is it possible to enter this specification in such way, so that the integrated BPSK decoder could decode the data?)

3rd) We’re internally using the TLEs we got from our launch provider, which are very similar to those you’re using:

MOVE-II CENTER
1 43758U 18099A 18337.80370529 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 9990
2 43758 97.6913 47.2054 0012666 260.5031 20.7110 14.94923662 01

4th) We’d glad to futher contribute to the network by adding our Ground Station (first tests have been quite promising - great instructions and hassle-free package btw!) and by pushing our decoding algorithm into the client software - any suggestions where and how to start with this?

5th) If anyone collects QSL cards, let us know :wink:

Thanks for your contribution!
Martin

–
MOVE-II / Technical University of Munich
https://www.move2space.de/MOVE-II/satellite/radio-amateurs/

4 Likes
62

You can start integrating your decoder by talking to @surligas for the gr-satnogs work and to me for the frame decoder to get dashboard data.

63

Hi @mdz, thanks for all the info.

Done

I’ve added a new CW transmitter at the right frequency and changed the old one to not alive. I didn’t edited the old one as this would create issues with the already done observations on network. This is a workaround until we change the way we store and use transmitters which is in our plans.
For BPSK the right thing is to add into downlink low the centered frequency. For decoding/domodulation maybe we should change our decoder. If you have any IQ file from your transmitter, it would help us to test and make the decoder better.

Thanks, we are monitoring closely spacetrack data and we adjust the TLEs

About 4 check @DL4PD reply.

About 5 it would be great to send QSL cards to the stations that already have the callsign into their name. :slight_smile:

1 Like
64

About 1/2:

Thanks for the quick response! Could you also change the Transceiver called “Downlink” to “Not Alive”? The one called “BPSK Telemtry” is the correct one according to our specs and your answer. And I think you may also resolve the open suggestions by that :wink:

About 3/4

That would be great! We already have a working GNU Radio package and use this for decoding - I guess this might also help? I’ll provide you with some data and the package for testing soon.

About 3

Also we are started our TLE bingo with NORAD. I’ll let you know if we get confirmed news from our contacts.

3 Likes
65

@fredy New ESEO TLE from ESA - 73s C

ESEO
1 43763U 18099F 18340.16022903 .00000942 00000-0 90346-4 0 9990
2 43763 97.7689 49.2924 0011640 255.4505 104.5775 14.95464606 362

2 Likes
66

If you have any IQ file from your transmitter, it would help us to test and make the decoder better.

I did upload the received baseband file from a quite good overpass:
https://gigamove.rz.rwth-aachen.de/d/id/pePkXEJAPBcAiy

The attached waterfall diagram is for your orientation. You may ignore the first half of the overpass.
The three wide BPSK12k5 telemetry beacons in the second half are the targeted ones.
In this recording they are centered around 145.949.950 Hz

The .gnuradio file is written according to:

2 Likes
67

@mdz: it would be great to get in touch with you a bit closer - would you mind joining our chatroom, either via riot.im (matrix) or direct IRC on freenode, called #satnogs?

This also speeds things up :wink:

2 Likes
68

Hi all,

I’m wondering if anyone with contacts with the various launch teams could find out what deployer their cubesat was on (I believe they were called UFF and LFF), and if they have had contact with their cubesat yet?

There are currently a few cubesats missing-in-action, and it would be interesting to see if there is any correlation with the deployer they came from.

Cheers,
Mark VK5QI

3 Likes
69

After the last 2 passes over Adelaide, I have the following doppler fits:

Name		Frequency		Best TLE	Residual
CSIM-FD		437.250			43758		164 Hz
ESEO		145.895			43792		59 Hz
FOX-1C		145.920			43770		56 Hz
ITASAT-1	145.860			43786		18 Hz
JY1-SAT		145.840			43788		46 Hz
MinXSS-2	437.250			43793		67 Hz
MOVE-II		145.950			43780		19 Hz
PW-SAT2		435.275			43780		258 Hz (No good fits, this is the closest within the SSO-A group)
RANGE-A		437.150			43798		107 Hz
SNUGLITE	437.275			43784		114 Hz
SNUSAT-2	437.625			43782		55 Hz
SUOMI-100	437.775			43788		437 Hz (No good fits, this is the closest within the SSO-A group)

Note that there is some overlap on the above fits. This should get better as more TLEs become available.

Cees and I have also discovered the following ‘mystery sats’, part of the SSO-A group:

Mystery-1	436.730			43768		21 Hz (4800 baud GMSK, NanoCom AX100 ASM+Golay mode, with CSP packets)
Mystery-2	436.500			43788		203 Hz (Possibly CW-over-FM)
Mystery-3	435.500			43783		110 Hz (Possibly 4800 baud GMSK)

I would suggest that entries be created in the DB with the mystery sat details, so further observations and hopefully decodes can be gathered. This may help identify these objects.

I’ll continue to monitor the above fits as more TLEs become available for this launch.

73
Mark VK5QI

5 Likes
70

I can confirm the ‘Mystery-2’ sat is beaconing CW-over-FM, with the CW tone at about 2.5 kHz.
It’s beaconing: AF-C.

As per DK3WN, it looks like it might be Al-Farabi 2
( http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=91478 )

… and Twitter confirms: https://twitter.com/scott23192/status/1070105504934969346

Mystery-2 = Al-Farabi 2

1 Like
71

Here are my IDs for three passes on the 8th and 9th of December.

Columns are: 1. Best fitting NORAD ID, frequency (MHz), rms residual (kHz), Time of closest approach (TCA, UTC), site location, TLE epoch, optional comments.

Positive identifications are:

43768 SSO-A mystery Sat #1
43792 ESEO
43798 Range A

Other satellites either do not have their TLEs available, or are too close to other objects.

Al-Farabi 2

43788 436.500 0.437 2018-12-08T20:21:36 4171 18342.436341
43788 436.500 0.488 2018-12-08T21:56:55 4171 18342.436341
43788 436.500 0.759 2018-12-09T11:07:29 4171 18343.038691 20s early

SSO-A Mystery sat #1

43768 436.731 0.021 2018-12-08T20:24:41 4171 18341.902703
43768 436.731 0.022 2018-12-08T22:00:07 4171 18341.902703
43768 436.731 0.017 2018-12-09T11:10:58 4171 18342.840105

ESEO

43792 437.004 0.059 2018-12-08T20:19:49 4171 18342.502108
43792 437.004 0.053 2018-12-08T21:55:06 4171 18342.502108
43792 437.004 0.020 2018-12-09T11:05:28 4171 18343.171216

Range A

43798 437.147 0.059 2018-12-08T20:18:55 4171 18340.695174
43798 437.147 0.071 2018-12-08T21:54:11 4171 18340.695174
43798 437.147 0.084 2018-12-09T11:04:28 4171 18342.902935

MinXSS-2/CSIM-FD

43793 437.255 0.021 2018-12-08T20:19:43 4171 18342.502053 43763 also close
43793 437.246 0.020 2018-12-08T20:19:44 4171 18342.502053
43793 437.255 0.023 2018-12-08T21:55:01 4171 18342.502053
43793 437.246 0.022 2018-12-08T21:55:02 4171 18342.502053
43793 437.246 0.021 2018-12-09T11:05:22 4171 18343.171150 43763 no longer a good candidate
43793 437.255 0.024 2018-12-09T11:05:22 4171 18343.171150

SNUGLITE

43788 437.277 0.383 2018-12-08T20:21:35 4171 18342.436341 Wrong ID, hard to measure
43760 437.276 0.164 2018-12-08T21:57:23 4171 18341.901190 Wrong ID, hard to measure
43785 437.276 0.378 2018-12-09T11:07:53 4171 18342.771236 Wrong ID, hard to measure

SUOMI-100

43788 437.775 0.261 2018-12-08T20:21:34 4171 18342.436341 Wrong ID
43788 437.775 0.268 2018-12-08T21:56:55 4171 18342.436341
43788 437.775 0.445 2018-12-09T11:07:28 4171 18343.038691 Wrong ID, 16s early

JY1-Sat

43788 145.840 0.090 2018-12-08T20:21:35 4171 18342.436341 Wrong ID
43788 145.840 0.094 2018-12-08T21:56:55 4171 18343.038691 Wrong ID, 11s early
43788 145.840 0.121 2018-12-09T11:07:28 4171 18343.038691 Wrong ID, 16s early

ITASAT-1

43787 145.860 0.029 2018-12-08T20:21:51 4171 18340.830207
43786 145.860 0.012 2018-12-08T21:57:13 4171 18342.905040
43786 145.860 0.007 2018-12-09T11:07:47 4171 18342.905040

FOX-1C

43771 145.920 0.080 2018-12-08T20:23:39 4171 18340.649443
43771 145.920 0.081 2018-12-08T21:59:03 4171 18342.705476 43769, 43770 also close
43770 145.921 0.021 2018-12-09T11:09:50 4171 18342.705495 43769 also close

2 Likes
72

Hello to everyone,

I am Vito, from Eaglet-I team; we would receive some telemetries from the Southern Hemisphere, after a long period of sun exposure.

Our parameters are:

2018-099AJ
1 43790U 18099AJ 18343.90741882 -.00000279 00000-0 -19948-4 0 9993
2 43790 97.7692 53.0085 0012149 247.7691 112.2241 14.95417577 619

Downlink: UHF, 435.2 MHz, 1k2, BPSK, Scrambler G3RUH, AX.25

Is there anyone that could provide us these telemetries?

Thanks in advance.

2 Likes
73

Hi Vito,

I’ve had a look at the last few days of wide-band observations from my station, and I haven’t sighted any signal on 435.2 MHz. The morning passes over here (Adelaide, station #232) are all around 10-11AM local time.

I think Fredy is going to add Eaglet-I into SatNOGS (since it isn’t added at the moment), so a few more observations can be scheduled. Given the lack of signal over the last few days it doesn’t look promising though.

73
Mark VK5QI

1 Like
74

The satellite is added and we have scheduled a couple Southern Hemisphere observations. Its temporary norad id in our db is 99933 and it is following object 43790 for its TLE.

1 Like
75

The two observations from my station (last night and this morning) both have 2 short blips which may be the 1k2 BPSK packets:
https://network.satnogs.org/observations/359228/
https://network.satnogs.org/observations/359229/

No decode, but perhaps something could be done with the demodulated audio.

73
Mark VK5QI

76

Thanks to all who is tracking our Cubesat; we have decoded some beacons, but we need to send a VHF command from the southern hemisphere; our uplink parameters are:

  • 145.850 MHz
  • 1k2
  • AFSK
  • AX.25

Is there anyone that could help us with uplink? I will give the hex command, if at all possible.

1 Like
77

@vlamarca - Happy to help from UK if needed.
What power do you need?

Consider messaging amsat’ers in Australia or South Africa.
Quick Google will get you some names :wink:
73s C

1 Like
78

I can probably do it, though not until the passes on the weekend.

What I would need is:

  • The packet, ideally as an audio file, though I can generate the file if necessary.
  • What I should be expecting from the satellite in response.

Cheers,
Mark VK5QI

1 Like
79

Dear All,

My name is Dongwon Jung, a leader of the CubeSat VisionCube.
We have been confirmed that the VisionCube has been deployed into the orbit.
However, our satellite is still missing (or probably some hardware malfunctioning), but we don’t want to give up yet.
Although many of you have helped us to find our satellite, however, there has been some wrong information provided since Dec. 4th. (I am sorry for this, it was my mistake to notify the wrong information)

The correct information is as follows,
Downlink Frequency: 437.425MHz, AX.25, GMSK 9k6
Possible TLE:
ENTER
1 43758U 18099A 18337.80370529 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 9990
2 43758 97.6913 47.2054 0012666 260.5031 20.7110 14.94923662 01

It would be very appreciated if you could you help us again with the information above.

Thank you very much in advance.

Best,
Dongwon (Thomas) Jung

2 Likes
80

The new transmitter at 437.425MHz is ready and we have scheduled a couple of observations.

I have disabled the other two that we added earlier.

Good Luck!

1 Like