Hello Daniel,

It is very good to see the development of more sophisticated ground stations to operate cubesats and other amateur satellites. Besides the development of more advanced communication systems and protocols, this is an area where I think there is a lot of opportunities for development.

During the last Cubesat Workshop that took place in Florianópolis, Brazil, there were some discussions about some areas in the design of a remote controlled ground station that needs attention. More specifically, the notion of a control operator in the amateur radio service (assuming the station will operate in the amateur radio service). It is not always clear who is the control operator when a station (transmitter) is being operated remotely, specially if the operation is automated. Things get worse when a station (transmitter) is being remotely operated from a different country. This issue can potentially raise eye brows from a regulatory perspective and I believe it would be very important for each project that will implement remote operations to clear the details with the national telecom administrations involved in order to comply with the amateur radio regulations and avoid stepping into legal issues.

73, Edson PY2SDR

--- - We humans have the capability to do amazing things if we work together. - Nós seres humanos temos a capacidade de fazer coisas incríveis se trabalharmos juntos.

On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 12:33 PM, Daniel Cussen [email protected] wrote:

From: https://satnogs.org/2016/08/cnc-librecubesat/

Although quite some time has passed since our last update the SatNOGS team and the community was busy working on it’s software and hardware components allowing modular setups.

A large amount of focus has being the SatNOGS client software. Allowing the user to not only use RTL-SDR based dongles but a far greater variety of SDR solutions using GnuRadio. In conjunction with that SatNOGS client is able to use Amateur Radios that are supported by hamlib (we’ve already tested on Yaesu and Kenwood radios). Such functionality paired with our new ground station hardware design, and further tests on after market designs such us Yaesu Az/El rotator would allow the SatNOGS network to not only receive but transmit data via the network to satellites.

Since a few months now Libre Space Foundation, the organization that assists the development, and operation of the SatNOGS networks is has being working together with the University of Patras on developing and manufacturing the first satellite with most of it’s components based open hardware and using free software, UPSat.

An open hardware and software satellite especially one build by Libre Space Foundation would be a great chance for the SatNOGS network to implement command and control features on it’s SatNOGS client, allowing a fully open Low Earth Orbiting satellite communication stack from earth to orbit and back.

Communications with the satellite are implemented through ECSS Standard Commands as described in ECSS-E-70-41A standard (CCSDS). You can checkout the code of the client on GitHub and the ecss services implemented on the satellite here. There has been a lot of effort to make sure that we implement all needed functionality on the SatNOGS client, while in parallel maintaining modularity and extensibility for future satellites and other protocols.

Do you have a satellite in the works and want to use SatNOGS client as command and control? Let us know and we will be happy to work with you expanding our client!

https://satnogs.org/2016/08/cnc-librecubesat/ _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb