Satellites love hydrazine – a type of space propellant – but it’s toxic to people and extremely difficult to handle. A non-toxic alternative will be put to the test with NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM), set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
NASA Image of the Day
Powered by WPeMatico
FossaSat-1 PocketQube Satellite
16-year-old radio amateur Julián Fernández EA4HCD was interviewed by the newspaper El Mundo Chronicle about his FossaSat-1 PocketQube satellite.
A Google translation of an extract of the article says:
…at the age of seven someone told him about the International Space Station and, since then, he has not stopped fantasizing about the idea of a voyage safe from gravity. “Unlike the children of previous generations who dreamed of being astronauts without knowing very well how to get it, I have grown up with all the information at my fingertips,” he tells Crónica.”
Now Julián Fernández [EA4HCD], already as CEO of Fossa Systems, has just launched a crowdfunding campaign through GoFundMe with which he intends to finance his latest talent: a mini-satellite (the smallest in Spain and the third in the world) that will allow the Internet access throughout the world. “It is not designed to provide Wi-Fi hotspots,” jokes this student of 4th of ESO, “but to try to democratize access to telecommunications in the environment of the internet of things.” To meet its objective, and in order to reduce launch costs, the last two years have been devoted to miniaturizing the size of the satellite. “My prototype will take the internet to rural areas, many of them without coverage of any kind, so that monitoring data can be sent at no cost”.
Read the English version of the full article at https://tinyurl.com/El-Mundo-FossaSat-1
The Fossa team is made up of international members from all over the world working together thanks to the magic of the internet https://fossa.systems/about-us/
The IARU have coordinated a frequency of 436.700 MHz for the 100 mW downlink which is capable of 183 Hz Shift FSK RTTY 45 baud ITA2 and LoRa 125 kHz B/W 180 bps, details at
http://www.amsatuk.me.uk/iaru/finished_detail.php?serialnum=652
The ITU API/A is available here.
Fossa say they have signed a orbital launch contract with UK company Alba Orbital and a launch on a Electron rocket is expected in the 4th quarter of 2019
https://fossa.systems/fossasat/
https://twitter.com/FossaSys
m5aka
AMSAT-UK
Powered by WPeMatico
Media are invited to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans at 9:30 a.m. CDT Friday, June 28, to view progress on the rocket core stage for the Space Launch System’s Artemis 1 Moon mission.
NASA Breaking News
Powered by WPeMatico
Media are invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 2, celebrating the renaming of NASA’s Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont, West Virginia, after the West Virginia native and storied NASA icon.
NASA Breaking News
Powered by WPeMatico
The Expedition 59 crew is going into the weekend preparing to split up on Monday amidst an array of ongoing human research. The orbital residents are also working on power upgrades and filming a virtual reality experience today.
Astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques are in their final weekend aboard the International Space Station. They will ride back to Earth on Monday with Commander Oleg Kononenko inside the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. Their Soyuz vehicle undocks at 7:25 p.m. EDT and lands in Kazakhstan at 10:47 p.m. (8:47 a.m. Tuesday Kazakh time). NASA TV will broadcast all the homecoming activities live.
Kononenko will hand over station command to cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin in a ceremony slated for Sunday at 3:35 p.m. live on NASA TV. Ovchinin officially becomes commander of Expedition 60 when the homebound trio’s Soyuz undocks Monday. NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague are continuing their stay aboard the orbiting lab.
McClain and Saint-Jacques participated in one final study today exploring behavior, performance and cognition in space. The duo practiced grappling a cargo craft during a robotic simulation for the Behavioral Core Measures study. McClain also prepared a CubeSat for deployment next week. Saint-Jacques recorded a science video demonstrating Newton’s second and third laws in microgravity.
Hague joined McClain during the morning setting up the CubeSat hardware inside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. In the afternoon, he partnered up with Koch and upgraded power electronics hardware in the Harmony module.
Finally, all six crewmembers gathered in the Zvezda service module at dinnertime and videotaped their activities with a 360-degree camera. The crew has been filming a variety of immersive, cinematic experiences throughout their mission to share with audiences on Earth.
Mark Garcia
Powered by WPeMatico
