The Art of Ham Radio … in Space

The ARTSAT2 DESPATCH satellite
(Courtesy ARTSAT-DESPATCH website)

The AMSAT News Service reports that students at Japan's Tama Art University are working on launching a piece of artwork - complete with a ham radio transmitter - into deep space in mid-2014. The sculpture/satellite, named ARTSAT2 DESPATCH, was created on a 3D printer and sill be launched into deep space as part of a mission to explore asteroids.

The vessel carrying the sculpture will also carry a low-power CW beacon operating on 435 MHz. It should reach its greatest operational distance from Earth - some 3 million kilometers or 1.8 million miles - about a week after it is launched, so receipt of those signals will represent a tremendous feat of QRP listening! For more information, see <http://tinyurl.com/ARTSAT-DESPATCH>.