IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination

 
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ExoCube2/CP12 Updated: 11 Aug 2016   Responsible Operator John Bellardo KK6HIT
Supporting Organisation Cal Poly  
Contact Person bellardo@calpoly.edu.nospam  
Headline Details: ExoCube 2 is a 3U CubeSat with the mission of acquiring in-situ densities of ions and neutrals in the upper ionosphere and lower exosphere. ExoCube 2 uses a gated time-of-flight spectrometer developed by NASA Goddard. Atomic oxygen and helium have not been measured in situ since the early 1980s and atomic hydrogen has never been measured directly in situ in this region. This data will help characterize the climatology of the upper ionospheric and lower exospheric composition. With a lifetime of 6 months, there is enough data to compare equinox and solstice conditions. On average, the payload produces 1.5 Megabits per orbit. Every pass over a ground station, the data will automatically begin downlink while new TLEs are uplinked to the satellite. Currently, the passes occur every seven to eight orbits, so a high data rate is highly preferred. Key scientific objectives include investigation of upper atmospheric global, diurnal, and seasonal variability, charge exchange processes, atmospheric response to geomagnetic storms, and validation of empirical and climatological atmospheric models (e.g. MSIS, TIE-GCM). To acquire accurate data, Nadir pointing must be maintained of +/- 10 degrees and ram pointing of +/- 5 degrees. An attitude determination control system (ADCS) was developed in order to meet these pointing requirements. The ADCS includes deployable booms for gravity gradient stabilization and a reaction wheel mounted on the pitch axis to couple the roll and yaw axes. An extended Kalman Filter provides the correct orientation of the satellite through magnetometer and solar sensor readings by using an Euler integrator and filtering out the sensor noise. This orientation data gets fed into the PD control law which then outputs the needed torques to the Magnetorquers. Proposing a UHF 9k6 AX25 FSK downlink. Planning a 500km circular polar orbit with a launch in Dec 2017 by Virgin Galactic. **A downlink on 437.150 MHz has been coordinated**
Application Date: 07 Aug 2016   Freq coordination completed on 11 Aug 2016

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