Mikio_Mouri wrote:

Dear Dee-san Thank you for your hard work preparing ANS.

As for UNITEC-1, Yes, we have contacted the project members, but in actually, not so much involved yet. We are interested in this project, but I don't think JAMSAT announced this mission, and how you received our commitment ; ) They want to rely on amateur-radio networks, so we are trrying to get more details (Frequency/Antenna/Power/Orbit/DSP...)

We will let you know when we receive more details. DB2OS, Peter-san shows interest in it to work with Bochum 20m dish!

We appreciate your continuous support.

Best regards, 73, JA3GEP. Mikio Mouri, JAMSAT

Dee wrote:

...

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-004

ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to:

ans-editor@amsat.org

In this edition:

• SKN Nominations Due
• UNITEC-1
• ESEO Project News
• ISS Ops
• ARISS Report
• Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Status Report

December 29, 2008

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-004.02 UNITEC-1

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 004.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. January 4, 2009 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-004.02

JAMSAT Announces Amateur Satellite to Venus

AMSAT has received news from Japan that JARL/JAMSAT are collaborating with the Japanese University Space Engineering Consortium (UNISEC) to send an amateur radio payload into a Venus transfer orbit with the pri- mary JAXA Planet-C Venus Orbiter mission planned for May, 2010.

UNITEC-1, developed by the teams who have already launched cubesats such as University of Tokyo's XI-IV, XI-V, and Tokyo Institute of Tech- nology's CUTE-1, CUTE-1.7+APD has the following engineering missions:

1. Onboard computers developed by several universities will be tested in the harsh space environment in the form of a competition; i.e., the computer which can survive to the last in the radiation-rich deep space environment will win the competition.

2. Technologies to receive and decode very weak and low bit rate signal coming from deep space will be developed and tested.

3. Technologies to estimate orbit and signal Doppler shift of the satellite based on the received RF signal will be developed and tested. These technologies are essential for tracking and receiv- ing signals from a satellite in deep space.

The UNITEC-1 team invites the support of amateur radio amateurs all around the world to participate in the receiving and data capture ex- periments in objectives 2 and 3, above. They note that amateur radio operators working as individuals or in groups develop stations and techniques to relay their received signal reports and data to the UNITEC-1 control station. This is also a unique opportunity to pro- pose amateur experiments or competitions to the satellite team.

UNITEC-1 will transmit a signal consisting of a CW beacon of about 1 bps speed. One experiment requiring the participation of several amateur radio earth stations would include the development of infer- eometric techniques to combine the received signals from several antennae to improve the received S/N ratio from the spacecraft out- bound from earth.

The UNITEC-1 website provides the latest mission information (such as orbit parameters, data formats and current status). UNITEC-1 will be the first university developed interplanetary satellite as well as the first amateur interplanetary satellite. The team sincerely hopes that UNITEC-1 will provide unique and exciting opportunity for the radio amateurs all over the world to enjoy reception of signals from deep space.

The UNITEC-1 website can be seen at: http://unitec-1.cc.u-tokai.ac.jp/en/news_en

[ANS thanks Graham Shirville, G3VZV for the above information]

/EX

Mikio, Our news service is a service to all that are interested in amateur radio satellite activities. We must always be united with an adventurous spirit. As the world shrinks, we all become closer to learn and assist with our goals. 73, Dee, NB2F