Dear friends,
This is an update about our satellite URESAT-1, launched with SpaceX on June 12th (Transporter-8 mission from Vanderberg) and using Alba Orbital as our space broker. First of all, URESAT-1 is a small pocketQube 1.5P (8x5x5 cm), much smaller than a Cubesat.
The satellite was expelled from the D-Orbit Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) ION ten days after the launch, on June 22th at 12.10 UTC, along with MRC-100 and ROM-2 satellites. Soon after, using the OTV TLE available for pointing, signals from MRC-100 and ROM-2 were received but not ours... This made us think we again had a problem with the deployment of the antennas.
Fortunately Daniel EA4GPZ could receive the URESAT-1 on June 26th using the ATA radio telescope at 22.03 UTC. The pattern of the transmissions matched and, using the IQs from the two antennas used, with two polarities, we could decodify telemetry, showing that the satellite was performing well with no resets or events. The battery was almost fully charged but the antennas were not deployed, as it was shown in the status packet received. We worked hard to improve the deployment system from our previous satellites but something hasn't gone well again. Satellite seems to be cold even in sunlight but we performed tests using temperatures as low as 20 C below zero so this should not be a problem...
Doing a lot of analysis (after the ATA observation we found that our satellite was 20-30 seconds ahead of MRC-100) and with a lot of help from the Satnogs thread regarding that launch, we managed to conclude that our satellite should be NORAD object 56992.
The team at Dwingeloo radio telescope on Netherlands has confirmed this with several observations these days
https://network.satnogs.org/observations/7877553/ https://network.satnogs.org/observations/7881183/ https://network.satnogs.org/observations/7883687/
Using the IQs of these recordings (available here https://data.camras.nl/satnogs/) we have been able to decode new telemetry, CW and even a SSTV image from the satellite image bank. After more than three weeks in orbit the satellite is performing well and we hope that the antennas will deploy at some moment.
The plan now is sending the satellite commands to try to deploy the antennas, although we are going to need a lot of power because the received signal without a proper antenna will be low. If you have a powerful station for transmitting on VHF and want to help us, please let me know.
We want to thank Daniel EA4GPZ, the ATA radio telescope, PE0SAT, the Dwingeloo staff, especially Tammo Jan, and Satnogs staff for their kind help in identifying the URESAT and the reception of their signals. It has provided very valuable data on the status of the satellite.
Decoded telemetry, CW and the SSTV image is available in our web (sorry, it is in spanish) and also in the Satnogs thread about the Transporter-8 mission:
https://www.amsat-ea.org/ https://community.libre.space/t/spacex-f9-transporter-8-2023-06-12-21-35-utc...
73
Felix EA4GQS - AMSAT EA President