ARISSat-1/KEDR SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED 
------------------------------------
Wednesday August 3, 2011 at 18.43 UTC, while performing an EVA 
(Extra-Vehicular Activity), ISS Expedition 28 Flight Engineers 
Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyaev manually released into 
space the amateur radio satellite ARISSat-1/Kedr. 

This is the prototype test flight of a proposed series of 
educational satellites being developed in a partnership with 
the Radio Amateur Satellite Corp. (AMSAT), the NASA Office of 
Education ISS National Lab Project, the Amateur Radio on ISS 
(ARISS) working group and RSC-Energia. 

The satellite is also called "KEDR", which means "Cedar" in 
Russian. This was the call sign used by Youry Gagarine during 
his historic space flight in 1961.  Kedr commemorates the 50th 
anniversary of the first man in space. 

ARISSat-1 was designed, developed and tested by AMSAT-NA and 
ARISS volunteers. The primary mission for the satellite is STEM 
(Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education 
around the world. The satellite also carries an experiment 
developed by the University of Kursk, Russia for the study of 
the atmospheric pressure in the space layer close to Earth. 

Students are expected to be able to easily receive the 2m FM 
transmissions and use the information in classroom exercises. 
There are 24 greeting in 15 languages, most with a Secret Word 
at the end. Students or classes can email their Secret Word 
reception and receive a certificate. 

Certificates will also be issued for SSTV image reception, 
voice telemetry reception, CW reception, full SSB telemetry 
packet reception and Kursk experiment reception. The satellite 
has four cameras on board that are constantly taking pictures 
and sending them to earth using SSTV Robot-36 format in the 
2m FM transmission. The official Web site for the ARISSat-1 
project is www.arissat1.org

Free software is available for the PC and Mac that will take 
audio from a 2m SSB receiver connected to a computer sound card 
and display the BPSK-1000 telemetry signal. 

Students and interested observers will be able to get the 
experiment data and plot it as well as watch the temperature 
and battery voltage changes as the satellite gets closer to the 
earth. 

A 16 kHz wide 70cm/2m (U/V) SSB/CW transponder is aboard, which 
can be used by Amateur Radio operators to operate through. An 
issue with the UHF receiving antenna is limiting the use of 
this transponder, but early reports are encouraging. 

The 40 kHz wide signal containing FM, CW, BPSK and transponder 
is all being transmitted simultaneously using new SDX (Software 
Defined Transponder) technology. 

Details are available on the following webpages : 
http://www.amsat.org
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/ARISSat/ARISSat.php
ttp://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/ARISSat/ARISSatHowTo.php

ARISSat-1/Kedr is expected to operate for nearly 6 month before 
de-orbiting. 

73 
Gaston Bertels - ON4WF 
ARISS Chairman 


update:
Certificates are available to anyone that receives the voice, 
digital or Morse code signals signals from ARISSat-1.

Voice and SSTV signals can be heard using just a 2m FM amateur 
radio receiver tuned to 145.950 MHz.

These are transmitted continuously in a round robin format:
Voice ID
Greeting
Voice Telemetry
Voice ID
SSTV image

A Secret word/password is included in most greetings.
Email the secret word/password, your name or group, date/time 
received,city, state, country and your email address to 
secretword@arissat1.org to receive a certificate.

The Voice Telemetry comprises selected telemetry channels read 
in a female voice.

Tone introduction - alerts you that telemetry data is to follow
MET is xxxxx - Mission Elasped Time in minutes
IHU Temp is -xxx degrees C
Control Panel Temp is -xxx degrees C
Battery Voltage is xx.x Volts
Battery Current is -xxx milliAmps

Email the voice telemetry data, your name or group, date/time 
received,city, state, country and your email address to
tlmreport@arissat1.org to receive a certificate.

The Slow Scan TV (SSTV) images are sent in Robot-36 format. 
Email a description of the SSTV image received, your name or 
group, date/time received,city, state, country and your email 
address to sstvreport@arissat1.org to receive a certificate.

Further information on the transmissions and certificate is 
available at
www.arissat1.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=61&Itemid=137


update:
The onboard battery, which is an Orlan spacesuit spare and was 
originally designed for a very small number of cycles, has failed 
open. Therefore, ARISSat-1 is only operational when illuminated.

http://amsat.org/amsat-new/satellites/satInfo.php?satID=136&retURL=/satellites/status.php