Monday, September 24, 2012

Cubesats Galore - But You Can Only Listen…


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.