The AMSAT News Service reports that four amateur radio cubesats were among a dozen satellites launched together on September 13 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The four amateur-band cubesats each carry scientific experiments and are downlink-only "birds" which do not provide for two-way amateur communications.
 |
| (NASA Photo) |
Five additional cubesats - all also downlink-only - were
scheduled to be hand-launched from the International Space Station on September
27. In addition, the Japanese-built PROITERES satellite was launched September
9 from India. It was India's 100th successful satellite launch, according to
space.com. It is also a downlink-only satellite, designed to demonstrate
powered flight using a pulsed plasma thruster engine.
