What is the process that should be followed for registering a new satellite? We are participating in the Canadian CubeSat Project for our senior design project and would like to participate in SatNOGs.
We are still in the design stage, but would like to get a head and figure out what information we need to provide. We would also like to ensure that our CubeSat will be in the database before the launch date.
From looking through the topics already posted, it appears that the members are well informed about CubeSat launches and add them in bulk? The database only has a section for suggesting transmitters, but we would be choosing one based on our needs and not based on a community suggestion. This also only allows admins to suggest (this makes sense for approvals) but how does one send the information to an admin for this to occur (and be approved)? How does one submit information about the full satellite? Through a topic? What information is required about the satellite?
You picked the right place for this!
Please provide as many informations as possible, like launch date, orbital parameter, modulation schemes, data schemes, used frequencies etc, as far as possible of course.
I’m sure @fredy will also chime in once he recognizes this.
Currently there isn’t any official process. As @DL4PD said, opening a thread here (as you did) and providing detailed information is the way to go. DB operators are going to create the satellite entry for you. This may change in the future, so that satellite teams will be able to suggest their own entries as it happens now with transmitters.
Indeed the community has done a great job on finding information about satellites that are going to be or have already been deployed. However this is not the ideal process, in most cases we need to hunt these info among several sources that are not always accurate.
Ideally satellite teams will bring these info, earlier the better. We had already some teams communicated their mission details and we had the chance to have better results, like decoders and dashboards.
Not sure if this is clear enough, transmitter suggestions comes from anyone that has information for a new transmitter or about changes on a transmitter of a satellite. So, the community doesn’t suggest which transmitter will be used to a satellite but offer information about what is used with a citation/source in order to be reviewed.
The process is described in this wiki page. So, after you choose the transmitter(s) for your satellite, you can either add their details here and someone create a suggestion in DB or either you can create this suggestion.
The review process is mostly based on the citation that is provided, for example good sources are the official site of the mission or observation(s) that show a specific behavior of the transmitter.
Let us know if you have more questions.
PS In case you have questions on the design or the build process of your cubesat, feel free to ask here as our open community has experienced people that could share their knowledge.
I can tell you, from the Canadian CubeSat Project, that there will be 15 Canadian CubeSats expecting to launch in 2021, of which ours will be one. There is a PDR happening this month so other teams will be presenting their information and we may be able to provide information on them too.
That does clear it up: in your case “suggestions” refers to ideas about what is used by the satellite as opposed to what is supported by SatNOGs.