News Archieve
10-09-03: Radio Amateur section updated. Other
site updates under progress.
09-09-03: AAU-cubesat has now completed more
than 1000 orbits!
Today low-level two-way communication, i.e. "pinging" and connect
attempts, were carried out continuesly for three minuttes without the
satellitte becoming inactive as usual, but no datalink connection was
succesfully established. We will be monitoring the situation closely
the next days to see if this means any improvement in the
battery/power situation.
08-09-03: So far battery and downlink
conditions have not been good enough (at the same time) to succesfully
establish a datalink connection and acquire more housekeeping data,
but the satellite continues to transmit beacon signals.
However, as a new semester has started at the university then the
effort is somewhat reduced.
25-08-03: An attempt of two-way communication
was carried out today with some success!
The satelitte answered simple "ping" commands and answered commands to
initiate the data-link protocol, but received signals were today too
weak for decoding at the groundstation, and it was therefore
impossible to extract houskeeping information from the
satellite. As the satelitte replied to ALL uplinked datapackets it
must be concluded that the uplink is very reliable.
This gives high hopes of downloading some houskeeping information from
the satellite in the future on a day where the received signal strenght
is as good as what has previously been received.
20-08-03: Another basic beacon has been
received followed by an advanced. The battery voltage from the basic
beacon is 7.9V. The data from the advanced beacon is:
Time after last reset: 7 seconds
Bootmode: Flash
Software errors: 0
Temperature (OBC): 31.0 C
Battery voltage: 6.60V
Again this unfortunately indicates battery charging/capacity problems
11-08-03: Yesterday a basic beacon was
captured on the 8m dish followed by an advanced beacon 10 seconds
later. The basic beacon indicated a batteryvoltage of 6.81V.
With help from the DSP-enthuiast Poul-Henning
Kamp it has been possible to decode the advanced beacon "off-line". It
contained the following information:
Time after last reset: 7 seconds
Bootmode: Flash
Software errors: 0
Temperature (OBC): 28.1 C
Battery voltage: 6.53V
The rapid decline in the batteryvoltage suggests that the batteries
has lost a lot of capacity, which is also consistent with the pattern
of transmitted basic- and advanced beacons observed throughout the
last week.
08-08-03: The communication attempts did not
turn out succesfull due to technical problems with the modemdriver
board. These issues will be solved over the next days and another
attempt with the 8m dish will be carried out.
However, the satelitte continues to send beacons
05-08-03: Another basic beacon has been
received. This time reporting a batteryvoltage of 8.17V which is close
to fully charged. In addition the satellite continues to transmit
advanced beacons as expected, everything seems to be well. Overall
datareturn is now 4.5 Bytes :)
Attempts of real communication will start tomorrow as the last
hardware is installed at the dish.
31-07-03: The signals received over the last
few days seem to indicate stable poleraization, which again indicates,
but does not prove, that the attitude control system is working as
supposed to in its current detumbling mode.
31-07-03: Another basic beacon was captured by
Carsten
Grøn's 8m dish. This one indicated a string voltage of 6V, which
is not very good. Unfortunately we have too little data for an
explanation of why the battery voltage has dropped this low.
Overall data return has now reached a staggering 24bits!! ;-)
30-07-03: The battery voltage has been decoded
from yesterdays basic beacon. String voltage was 7.6V (cell voltage
3.8V). While this is in the nominal range it is a bit lower than
expected at this time while the satelitte does not have
eclipses.
This constitutes the first real data return!!
29-07-03:
The first tests with the 8m dish has begun. It is working well, but
there is an issue with the azimuth tracking speed that needs to be
resolved.
It has been confirmed that the satellite is still alive, as an automatic
satellite reset sequence today was captured by the 8m dish, i.e. both a
basic beacon and an advanced beacon was heard. We will tomorrow attempt
to decode data from the basic beacon and will in near future move more
gndst. equipment to the dish in order to decode the advanced beacons and
start communication.
14-07-03: Today the groundstation has been
decomssioned and the radio sent to to the radio-amateur who is
refitting his 8m dish for our use, see Carsten Grøn's homepage
While the dish is being refitted the grounstation personnel is going
to France to participate in the 6th ESA student parabolic flight
campaign with their other project. See the MIEMA homepage and
ESA
SPFC homepage
The team will be back on the 27th and will then begin ground
operations with the 8m dish. Mails will be answered as fast as
possible while we are in France. For very important issues call (+45)
22196094.
14-07-03: The new and more sensitive
preamp and polerarization switch installed this friday has shown
themselves to give better results in terms of beacons received with
better signal to noise radio, but they are still to weak to be decoded
:(
10-07-03 (20:00): A total of eight, possibly ten, beacons heard
today. We are getting better and better! See the daily update for more info.
09-07-03 (18:23): Two beacons heard this evening not much, but it's
still up there and working.
09-07-03 (13:20): We are now taking down the "mission control" and
"antenna" cameras in order to make the gndst. more "manageable" with
limited manpower. Thanks for keeping an watchfull eye on us!
09-07-03 (13:00): We have now established a
cooperation with the groundstation of the norwegian student satellite
NCUBE . They will help us try to record signals for post processing
(decoding).
08-07-03 (19:15): During a higly elevated pass
this evening 5 beacon signals were heard with two minuttes
interval. Two of these were even hearable on the radio, but they were
still too weak to be decoded (Element set: 27842). We will start to
install new, and more sensitive, equipment on the groundstation
tomorrow. Hopefully this will help. The satellitte has now survived
more than a week in the space environment!
08-07-03 (18:15): The CanX-1 groundstation reconfirms contacts with
AAU-cubesat; Two distinct beacons were heard during their 13:24 UTC
pass. The beacons were received with the radio in LSB (lower side
band) mode. The contact were on the 27842 elements. A switch to the
27846 elements on the late part of the pass didn't reveal any beacons.
07-07-03 (19:30): Tonight we received possible beacons on two
passes by listening for the 200303G (27846) element from Celestrak. This is a change from the weekend where
we used the 200303C (27842) and we hope that this means that we are
getting closer figure out where in the sky our satellite is.
07-07-03 (08:10): See a panorama view from out groundstation
antenna here.
Thanks to Jens Brandi for the picture.
07-07-03 (08:00): We have now spent the weekend with listening for
the satellites with the spectrum analyzer without any luck. Nothing
heard from AAU Cubesat, DTUsat or CANX-1. We are therefore changing
tactics and will go back to using the radio.
06-07-03 (08:30): A list of the passes today and tomorrow can be
found (time in GMT) here.
05-07-03 (18:30): Not much activity this evening either - no signals from
AAU Cubesat but a lot of narrowband noise from other places was
received.
05-07-03 (13:40): Not much activity this morning - no signals from
AAU Cubesat. One pass was spend tracking QuakeSat and some weak
signals was received.
04-07-03 (19:30): No distinct beacons during evening passes, but
our ambient noiselevels where also higher than previously
observed. The CanX-1 Gndst. once again has heard two of our beacons
this night.
We are investigating how to best upgrade our gndst. in order to
achieve a better signal, to noise ratio.
During the weekend we will continue to listen at the high-elevation
passes, but as we are beginning to rotate people (people needs a day of
now and then) the activity level will be a bit lower than usual.
04-07-03 (17:11): This web-page may be very slow and many features
may be not working. This is due to the extreme load on the server due
to the interest.
04-07-03 (12:03): Pass logfile updated, see link above.
04-07-03 (11:43): Radio amateurs!: We are preparing a comprehensive
information package for you for tonights good pass over Aalborg. Be
patient. Come back later or better: subscribe to our mailinglist.
See here: Information incl. element set
04-07-03 (11:29): Daily status report updated, see link above.
04-07-03 (11:29): One beacon from AAU-cubesat observed this
morning, using spectrum analyser.
03-07-03 (21:40): Today was a great succes. We now know where we
are! and that we are alive, and due to the 2 minuttes beacon interval
it can be concluded that our batteries are OK, since low voltage will
give another beacon frequency. The website will be cleaned up and
updated during tomorrow with the most recent details.
03-07-03 (19:20): Succes. We heard 4 very faint beacons with exact
(to the second) inter spacing. We are now 100% certain that it is up
there!!! Thanks to the CanX-1 crew for their great help today! More
comprehensive update will follow after a bottle of champagne! However
we will need better gndst. equipment to ever be able to decode
telemetry. Yeah!
03-07-03 (15:00): Beacon from AAU-cubesat
received by CanX-1 groundstation for the second time!!
Our
canadian friends have once again confirmed our observations over the
last days; AAU-cubesat is transmitting its advanced beacon signal with
an interval of 2 minuttes as expected!! They tried tracking various
elements and found the signal on the newest 27842 elements, which are
expected to be a seperated satellite from the 76906 "cluster"
These are the exact orbital elements from CanX-1's last contact:
1 27842U 03031C 03183.97330223 .00000006 00000-0 23366-4 0 30
2 27842 98.7254 190.8646 0008049 278.4568 81.5579 14.20487212 326
Poleraization: Right-hand
We hope to confirm these findings at our next pass: 14:46 GMT - 14:59 GMT
Nothing conclusive this pass on the spectrum analyser. We are now
switching back to our radio, which we are more familiar with. Next
pass will be elevated at 73 degrees. We have high hopes for this pass!
DTUsat will help us listen for AAU-cubesat on the next pass. We will
use our radio, and they will use a spectrum analyser. This must work!
03-07-03 (15:00): Beacon from AAU-cubesat received by CanX-1
groundstation!!
Our canadian friends have confirmed our observations over the last
days; AAU-cubesat is transmitting its advanced beacon signal with an
interval of 2 minuttes as expected!! This was on NORAD original 76906
"cluster" elements.
03-07-03 (13:30): Please do not get too excited over the signals
that sometimes shows on the webcam. We are running a number of tests
with our engineering model from time to time.
03-07-03 (11:30): Just a quick update of the little celebration
yesterday: Here is some
bowling results and as you can see Kasper won (we call it luck).
03-07-03 (04:50): A lot of people show interest in our project at
the moment, both by visiting this webpage and by sending us mails with
suggestions and encouragements. We will hereby like to thank you all
for this interest and apologize for the cases were the webservers are
very sluggish and when we may take a long time to reply to mails.
02-07-03 (20:00): Signals were heard through
last radio pass!! Look in pass- and daily reports for more info
Since there are no more radio-passes today and since we now are about
to celebrate that Kasper Oestergaard from our group is getting married
(Bachelor party) we wish you a good night !
The happy guy ;-)
02-07-03 (17:50): High probability contact!!!
For more info:For a per radio pass update: pass logfile
02-07-03 (11:00): This morning we received three very weak signal
bursts on the right frequency, in the right direction and with an
interspacing that corresponds to our beacon signal. We are hoping that
NORAD can provide better estimates of the NLS-1 orbital elements
during the day.
01-07-03 (21.50): This is about it for tonight - we will be back
tomorrow.
We have made a list of the passes in the next days from the
elements that we (perhaps and hopefully) had beacon from. List. Time is local.
01-07-03 (21.15): We have just tracked QuakeSat on this last
pass before tomorrow morning and we got a fine signal from it most of the
time. Also we have just gotten some new Kepler elements from Millstone
Hill Radar and the Canadians says that they have separated the
satellites from each other. AAU Cubesat should be quite close to the
QuakeSat elements.
01-07-03 (18.50): Here is a video from the launch:
Video
01-07-03 (18.30): Here are two different Kepler elements for
tracking the satellite, one is from the QuakeSat and the second one is
the new elements from Norad. The QuakeSat elements are interesting
because of their success with contact.
Elements
01-07-03 (18.00): We have currently two passes with fairly high
elevation and are now using new orbit elements from NORAD which now
tracks something they think is a cluster of satellites. This perhaps
means that the satellites from P-Pod NLS-1 have been deployed after
all, but still no contact with any of them.
01-07-03 (7.00): Canada has gained contact with the MOST satellite
but we have not heard of any contact with any of the satellites
from the NLS1 P-Pod.
30-06-03: We know now that a Danish radio amateur has received carrier
from the two Japanese satellites and that at least one of them has
established contact from the groundstation. Also Quakesat has
established contact with the groundstation.
30-06-03: We did not manage to get a signal from the satellite on
the first opportunity. This may be due to wrong polarization of the
antennas (which is a trial and error setting). We will continue to
try, but contact is not expected until about 07:00 on the 1st of July,
since the radio passes until that time only will have very little elevation.
30-06-03: We have received a picture of the launch:
Launch picture
30-06-03: The satellite has been separated today at 17.47. We have seen it
necessary to shut down all cameras but the one of the radio and the
one of the mission control room. This were because of a large load on
the webserver.
29-06-03: 4 webcams have now been installed in order for you to
follow the activities at Aalborg university before and following the
launch. Follow the link: webcams.
28-06-03: The Rockot launcher "Launch Readiness Review" has cleared
the former ICBM for launch on schedule on monday. Fueling operations
have now started
19-06-03: If you are interested in the AAU Cubesat Project you can sign up for
the maillist and you will receive a mail every time something new
happens on this site or with the AAU Cubesat. Every one is welcome to
join this maillist! Just send a mail to majordomo@cubesat.auc.dk with an empty subject and in the
body type: "subscribe satnews"
17-06-03:The P-POD carrying AAU-cubesat, designated NLS-1, has now been mounted on the upper stage of the Rockot launcher. For more information see: www.eurockot.com, and choose "MOM daily report".
14-06-03: Many news fotos and videos have been added under gallery : Fotos. Both from the departure to Canada, the integration in Canada and from the launch site in Russia.
14-06-03: A cubesat forum and a information page for radio armatures have been added - seen the bottom of the menu.
08-06-03: On-site testing at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome has
completed. AAU-Cubesat is go for launch! The satelitte (in its P-POD)
will be mated to the spacecraft on the 13th of June.
04-05-03: The satelitte has been succesfully integrated in its
P-POD and has passed all environmental tests in Toronto.
25-04-03: The satelitte is now packed in a sealed transport container, and it will leave for Toronto on Sunday the 27th of April where it will be integrated with the other cubesats and undergo more environmental testing
25-04-03: The status and schedule section has been update: Status & Schedule.
12-04-03: Fotos of the flight model integration has been added under gallery - fotos.
12-04-03: The completed flight model has succesfully completed thermal vacuum test
28-03-03: The completed flight model has succesfully completed vibration test
28-02-03: The cubesat team has been interviewed for the danish DR TV-avisen and it was brought it the 26. febuary in the 18.30 news. See it here in realplayer streaming:
Interview
28-02-03: All mechanical integration is now completed on the engineering model. See the pictures here.
19-01-03: The Links & Material section has been cleaned up
17-02-03: All hardware of the satellite are now operating together
without problems in the engineering model and we have begun the integration of the Flight Model.
15-01-03: AMSAT has approved the use of an amateur frequency for the project. The frequency will be 437.450MHz. More information for radio-amateurs will be published later.
04-01-03: The Status & Schedule section has been updated
25-12-02: Eurockot has postponed the launch to June 2003. This will give us some more time to assemble and test the flightmodel.
16-12-02: The engineering model completed vibration tests. The tests were successful, but there were also a few lessons to be learned that will help us in the assembly process of the flightmodel. Test facilities were kindly made available by Terma
25-11-02: The cubesat team has been interviewed for the danish TV2-Nyhederne and it was brought it the 2. december in the 22.00 news.
See it here in realplayer streaming: tv2-clip.rm (3148 kb)
19-11-02: Another animation of the cubesat in space has been added - this time perhaps it is a bit sci fi.
25-11-02: All 4 subsystems that communicate using the I2C-bus has
now been succesfully integrated and tested. Further we are now able
to receive and transmit data through the modem. The only thing missing
in order to have a full working electrical engineering model is now
integration between the modem and the radio.
08-11-02: The integration between the OBC and PSU has been made and
they operate quite well together.
08-11-02: We have encapsulated the batteries by two alu-plates and vacuum tested them for 3 dayes - the conclusion is that the batteries haven't got problems with the vacuum.
02-11-02: The integration of the engineering model is proceeding as
planned except for the radio which is not yet in our hands.
02-11-02: You can now see where the AAU Cubesat is at this moment. Where is AAU Cubesat?
02-11-02: The documentation section has been updated some more.
02-11-02: A slideshow presentation of the Cubesat has been added here in 1024x768 resolution.
06-10-02: The website has been updated in many ways - and more will follow.
05-10-02: A 3D VRML Model has been added in the Animation Section.
