IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination
 
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Aleasat Updated: 19 Jan 2022   Responsible Operator David Michelson VA7DM
Supporting Organisation University of British Columbia  
Contact Person davem@ece.ubc.ca/nospam  
Headline Details: A 1U CubeSat. Primary mission: ALEASAT will provide radio amateurs with an opportunity to become familiar with the principles of disaster monitoring satellite constellations and possibly serve as a precursor to a fully functional amateur disaster monitoring satellite constellation. The satellite will accept requests from radio amateurs to collect imagery of a specific place on Earth, and then downlink that imagery directly from the satellite to the radio amateurs during ALEASAT’s next pass over their location. Different from the automatic picture transmission mode used by most other amateur satellites with an Earth observation capability, such a targeted EO capability has obvious applications to disaster monitoring and relief activities. The use of inexpensive Earth Observation satellites for disaster monitoring has attracted great interest in recent years. See, for example, the Disaster Monitoring Constellation that was based in part of technology first demonstrated by UoSAT-12/OSCAR 36 in the early 2000’s, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_Monitoring_Constellation . During its two-year lifetime, ALEASAT will build on such past efforts and contribute to Amateur Radio by: - introducing the concept of targeted Earth observation to the wider Amateur Radio community for the purpose of providing greater situational awareness during times of disaster, and, - providing a broad spectrum of Radio Amateurs with their first opportunity to become knowledgeable and proficient in the use of such systems and to gain an understanding of their strengths and limitations, especially the factors that govern system response time. While ALEASAT’s mission will only last a few years, it could well pave the way for a more permanent follow-on Amateur-Radio-based Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) mission that would provide a long-term capability for radio amateurs engaged in disaster relief activities. Secondary mission: The secondary mission is to expose students to the accepted industrial processes associated with designing a real satellite in response to the requirements and constraints of a real customer, here the Amateur Radio community. In addition, SFU students will operate an experimental payload that seeks to determine how a spinning mass on board the satellite affects the orientation of the satellite in space and use the results to validate assumptions when estimating the effect of a full-size human centrifuge on a larger spacecraft or space station. The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) has committed to partnering with the ALEASAT team to deliver training and engagement opportunities concerning targeted Earth observation and disaster monitoring satellite constellations to members of the amateur radio community. Such activities will include both web-based training on the fundamentals of targeted Earth observation in an Amateur Radio context and live exercises involving Amateur Radio disaster relief groups. These initiatives will both advance ALEASAT’s mission goals, e.g., training of undergraduate and graduate level university students in aerospace engineering and amateur radio as they undertake a real-life satellite mission, as well as build stronger links between the traditional amateur radio community and university amateur satellite design teams. Proposing UHF downlink using 9k6 and 20kb 2GFSK AX25 or CC1110 protocols. Planning a SpaceX launch from Vandenberg in Dec 2021 into a 400-500km SSO. More info at https://www.ubcorbit.com/ **A downlink on 437.300 MHz has been coordinated**
Application Date: 07 Jul 2021   Freq coordination completed on 19 Jan 2022

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