IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination

 
Back to List of Sats formally submitted

ChipSat-1 Updated: 08 Jun 2023   Responsible Operator Jan Thoemel LX1FGG
Supporting Organisation University of Luxembourg  
Contact Person jan.thoemel@gmail.com.nospam  
Headline Details: A 5 cm x 5 cm chipsat-shaped hosted payload on LuxSpace’s Triton X lite IOD mission. ChipSat-1 is an educational femto-satellite-type mission developed by students from the University of Luxembourg, aiming to demonstrate the design and telecommunication capabilities from low Earth orbit (~500 km altitude) of a 5 × 5 × 0.2 cm chip-sized satellite. It is conceived as a hosted payload externally attached to Luxspace’s Triton X lite in-orbit demonstration satellite. ChipSat-1 gathers data from on-board sensors and then transmits this data to Earth. It acts as an independent spacecraft, having its own power generation (solar panels) and radio link. The only electrical interface between ChipSat-1 and its host spacecraft is an activation signal that needs to be present for ChipSat-1 to operate. Suppression of the signal turns ChipSat-1 off when the host spacecraft is passivated or, upon request, for instance, in case of unwanted spurious RF emissions. Figure 1 ChipSat-1 prototype (5x5 cm, V-dipole antennas not yet attached) effectively consisting of 3 sub-satellites. ChipSat-1's experiment also serves as a demonstration of a distributed satellite system. As such, it is split into three electrically independent parts, two of which perform temperature, ambient light and gyroscope measurements, and one of which transmits these measurements back to Earth. The link between the three is achieved with an experimental visible light communication, using free-space LEDs and photodiodes that demonstrate optical intersatellite communication capabilities. ChipSat-1 is designed to transmit a periodic beacon every 2 minutes on the 435-438 MHz band using DSSS with a simple FSK protocol using a low-power (+20 dBm EIRP) data link with an effective data rate of 100 bits/s demonstrating satellite control and experimentation with reduced data rate. The design and software of ChipSat-1 will be open-source and freely available online once finalized. The highly reduced telemetry data will be received by uni.lu and SnT’s club station (LX9SNT/ LX1FGG) used for doctoral training (SV2SVZ) and education of uni.lu’s master students. This will also be an opportunity for radio-amateur stations to experiment with low-power and low-data rate signals and pave the way for low-cost and low-resource missions that reduce the barrier of entry for amateur and educational satellites to space. ChipSat-1 also intends to be a part of the SatNOGS network, giving operators a chance to easily decode the data of one of the smallest satellites ever launched. ChipSat-1 is our first in-orbit experiment targeted for launch in autumn or winter 2023 on a Transporter mission from Vandenberg. Proposing a downlink on UHF with bandwidth 20 kHz, data rate: 200 bps, DSSS with chip rate of 32, (6.4 kbps), FSK, CRC, no FEC More info at https://github.com/kongr45gpen/chipsat-1 *This request has been withdrawn**
Application Date: 17 Apr 2023   Freq coordination completed on

The IARU Amateur Satellite Frequency Coordination Status pages are hosted by AMSAT-UK as a service to the world wide Amateur Satellite Community