Hey everyone. I'm a researcher at Cornell, and this fall, our experimental, 1 inch diameter, “chip satellites” are scheduled to be launched on the final space shuttle flight, STS-134.  They're going to be mounted on the exterior of the ISS structure, and will be set to transmit a 902 MHz signal.  Unfortunately, we do not yet have an antenna for receiving this transmission.  After talking with Bob - Wb4APR for a while, it was suggested that the fine members of the AMSAT – BB might be able to help us.

What we’re looking for is a digital capture of this 902MHz frequency (with a bandwidth of about 200KHz), during at least one ISS pass (only a few gigs of data, we believe).  No decommutation or other analysis of the signal will be required, but actually capturing the signal will require at least a 20 dbB gain receive antenna (more details in a minute).

If any of you can help us in this experiment, or are able to successfully capture the signal, not only would we be incredibly grateful, but we would also be prepared to add your names and contributions to all of the published papers that will result from this mission.  It goes without saying, though, that we’d also be entirely open to suggestions if the community, or a member, were aware of some manner by which Cornell might be able to better avail itself to the both those who help us on this project and the community as a whole.

So here are the technical details.  There are 3 transmitting antennas, all tiny, center-fed dipoles: two of them use wires separated by 180 degrees, and one has wires separated by 90 degrees.  Each of these dipoles is mounted a few mm from large metal panels on the ISS.  The ChipSats will transmit for approximately 10ms every 1-2 seconds, but the signal is going to be beneath the noise floor.  Detecting the signal requires a pseudorandom noise (PRN) code, which Cornell will handle once the dataset is in hand.  Since we can/will take care of the post processing, and capture isn’t guaranteed on every ISS pass (attitude alignment problems still TBD) so anyone who can take a recording of this frequency at this bandwidth for us, of any ISS pass, would be incredibly helpful.

The good news is that the chips will be live and transmitting almost immediately after they are installed from STS-134, and they will transmit continuously whenever the ISS is in sunlight.  Additionally, should they survive in their environment, they are set to transmit for up to two years, which should give us many chances to receive the data and confirm that the ChipSats are functioning.

Thanks for your time, everyone, Robert Christ http://www.spacecraftresearch.com/

P.S. a little extra information: Our website is http://www.spacecraftresearch.com/projects.html if you're interested. This mission isn't explicitly mentioned there yet, but is rather a proof of feasibility study for most of the projects listed on that site. Ah and lastly, the ERP of the transmitter is expected to be ~10 dBm, though it will almost certainly be facing in a poor orientation, giving us only a fraction of that power. We won't know the exact amount for a few more days. Thanks all!