ARLA/CLUSTER: 200 CubeSat vão ser lançados no dia 16 de Março

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

 Launch of two hundred 437MHz satellites

The largest ever launch of 437 MHz satellites is planned for March 16
at 0841 UT when 200 Sprite satellites will be launched on the SpaceX
Falcon 9 CRS 3 mission

They will be deployed into a 325×315 km 51.5 degree inclination orbit.
You should be able to watch the launch live on NASA TV at
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv

A Sprite is a tiny, 3.5 by 3.5 cm, single-board spacecraft that was
developed by Zac Manchester KD2BHC. It has a microcontroller, radio,
and solar cells and is capable of carrying single-chip sensors, such
as thermometers, magnetometers, gyroscopes, and accelerometers.

The 200 Sprites are carried in a 3U CubeSat called KickSat. They are
stacked atop a spring-loaded pusher and secured by a nichrome burn
wire system.

On reaching orbit KickSat will perform a de-tumble maneuver and
establish communication with Cornell University’s ground station.
After check-out, the spacecraft will be put in a sun-pointing attitude
and spun up to maintain that attitude.

A command signal from the ground station will then trigger the
deployment and the Sprites will be released as free-flying spacecraft.
After deployment, telemetry and sensor measurements from the
individual Sprites will be received through Cornell’s ground station
in Ithaca, NY, as well as several other amateur ground stations around
the world.

Due to the low orbit Sprites will have a short lifetime before they
re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. In the best-case scenario the
orbital lifetime could be six weeks but realistically it may be
considerably shorter depending on atmospheric conditions.

All Sprites operate on a single frequency of 437.240 MHz and use Code
Division Multiple Access (CDMA). The transmitter runs 10 mW output of
Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) modulated binary data with each data bit
modulated as a 511 bit Pseudo-Random Number (PRN) sequence. The ITU
emission designator is 50K0G1D.

The KickSat CubeSat has downlinks on 437.505 MHz and 2401-2436.2 MHz.

KickSat Sprite Ground Station by Andy Thomas G0SFJ
http://kicksat.wordpress.com/support/kicksat-ground-station/

British Interplanetary Society: Sprite Technical Summary
http://www.bis-space.com/2013/03/09/9301/kicksat-technical-summary

KickSat project information
http://zacinaction.github.io/kicksat/

KickSat on KickStarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zacinaction/
kicksat-your-personal-spacecraft-in-space/

Check this site for the latest CRS 3 launch date
http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/