Fellow Hams, The University of Michigan's Radio Aurora Explorer (RAX) CubeSat Team is excited to announce its launch THIS FRIDAY (November 19th) out of Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska! The satellite is a space weather science spacecraft carrying a 9600 baud UHF transceiver that will transmit telemetry in the amateur satellite bands. The satellite also carries a radar receiver on board capable of 1 MHz I/Q sampling of select bandwidths between 400-500 MHz, including the amateur satellite bands. The primary objective of the mission is to use the onboard radar receiver in conjunction with a powerful radar station in Alaska to study the formation of a plasma anomaly known for causing the scintillation of radio signals in the UHF and higher bands. This scintillation effect is known to inhibit our space radar tracking capabilities and ground-space communications. Studying this anomaly in this bi-static radar configuration (ground based transmitter, space-base receiver) will provide scientists with a better understanding of these anomalies that has not been achievable with ground radars alone. If you have an amateur satellite ground station, then we want you to be involved with our mission! We are looking for amateur ground stations to help acquire RAX's UHF beacon during the next few weeks of early launch and continue to help collect telemetry throughout the mission. We also want the AMSAT community to get involved with submitting proposals on how the radar receiver could be used for amateur radio experiments after the primary mission objective is achieved. We anticipate a call for proposals to be posted to the AMSAT-BB in the next few months. For up-to-date launch information, LIVE launch video, tracking and beacon information, TLEs, and beacon decoding software, please visit our website at http://rax.engin.umich.edu. Please check this website regularly for TLEs as TLEs will NOT be posted on the usual sites (Celestrak, Space-Track, etc) for spacecraft on this launch. Thank you very much for your attention! Please email me with any questions. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, etc to get the latest updates on the launch, acquisition, and science operations! (see RAX webpage for links)
Thanks and 73! Matt Bennett
KF6RTB AMSAT MemberRAX Program Managerhttp://rax.engin.umich.edu