SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS001
ARLS001 Three Amateur Radio Satellites Rocket Into Space

ZCZC AS01  
QST de W1AW  
Space Bulletin 001  ARLS001
From ARRL Headquarters  
Newington, CT  January 28, 2000
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS001
ARLS001 Three Amateur Radio Satellites Rocket Into Space
 
An Air Force Minotaur rocket lifted off right on schedule January 26
from the new California Commercial Spaceport at Vandenberg Air Force
Base. Three Amateur Radio satellite packages were aboard. Two of the
satellites already have been deployed and are said to be working. A
third amateur picosat package will be deployed over the weekend.

The primary payload is the US Air Force Academy's Falconsat.
JAWSAT--Joint Air Force-Weber State University Satellite--served as
a bus for several deployable payloads and the Plasma Experiment
Satellite Test experiment--PEST. The telemetry stream from JAWSAT,
including data from PEST, will be transmitted on Amateur Radio
frequencies. Amateur Radio operators have been invited to contribute
to the program by recording the downlinked data. Data from PEST will
require using either a G3RUH modem or a GMSK modem. Data rates
should be as high as 38.4 kb/s. Data will be transmitted on 437.175
MHz or 2403.2 MHz. NASA says it will publish instructions for
sending in data so the PEST team can use it.

Deployable payloads aboard JAWSAT are Stanford University's Orbiting
Picosat Automatic Launcher--or OPAL: Arizona State University's
ASUSat, and the Air Force Research Lab's Optical Calibration Sphere.

Hank Heidt, N4AFL, of the StenSat team said today that both JAWSAT
and ASUSat appear to be working perfectly at this time, with
telemetry indicating that all systems are reporting nominal
performance. StenSat, which is a satellite within another
satellite--OPAL--is set to be put into space this weekend, Heidt
said.

ASUSat and JAWSAT have Amateur Radio capability, but the tiny,
eight-ounce StenSat is strictly a ham satellite--designed by hams,
for hams. It was developed by a group of amateur enthusiasts in the
Washington, DC, area as part of Stanford University's OPAL project.

StenSat will operate as a single-channel Mode J FM voice repeater.
The uplink frequency will be 145.84 MHz: the downlink will be
436.625 MHz. StenSat will periodically transmit 1200 baud AX.25 for
telemetry. Additionally, amateur radio operators will be able to
''ping'' the satellite by transmitting a six-digit DTMF command to the
receiver uplink. More information on StenSat is available at
http://users.erols.com/hheidt/.

ASUSat will contain amateur packet hardware and a 2-meter/70-cm FM
voice repeater. ASUSat1 is an ASU NASA Space Grant project and
Arizona State University's first student-designed satellite.
Information on ASUSat is available at http://nasa.asu.edu/asusat/.
NNNN
/EX