The Japanese UNITEC-1 space probe has been successfully launched and is now beginning its mission to the planet Venus. What makes this mission of particular interest to amateurs is the fact that the UNITEC engineers have added a 5 GHz Amateur Radio beacon to the spacecraft and they are encouraging hams to attempt to receive it.

On May 21 Japanese ground stations reported receiving the CW and FSK beacons (call sign JQ1ZUN) at a distance of about 300,000 km. They measured the beacon frequency at 5839.91 MHz.

More information is available at the University Space Engineering Consortium Web site.