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On March 31, 2006, the amateur radio operators from AMSAT Germany tracked and received data from Voyager 1 using the 20 m dish at Bochum with a long integration technique. Its data was checked and verified against data from the Deep Space Network station at Madrid, Spain. AMSAT-DL article in German; ARRL article in English. This is believed to be the first such tracking of Voyager.

I clicked through to read TFA, and (in addition to it being in German), it was shorter than the summary! ... no, wait, it was just a bad link to the home page of this particular group, rather than to the actual article that the AC submitter appears to have translated practically word-for-word to create the summary (which nevertheless didn't bother to link to the source article).

Is it too much to ask that the summary ... summarize? Can someone for the love of FSM explain to me why we needed not only all the geeks involved's names, but also their radio call signs? Wouldn't all the Voyager telemetry groupies be willing to read TFA to get that crucial information?

Yes, I'm grumpy today. Sorry...

Here is a pdf file discussing the requirements, hopefully new computer processing techniques will lighten the job, although I'm aware it won't be easy. I might have to join up with a local club. Nevertheless I believe that new techniques will be searched for to ease the receiving requirements. During the last years, low-power transmitting is a real hype, people are making connections around the globe with milliwatts(!!) of transmitting power.

Aha, an other HAM satellite! Don't forget HAMs will be able to recieve data from Mars if this mission succeeds. (ok, at 5 baud or so, but an interesting project nonetheless, and a reason for me to get a license.

Here is a PDF with some discussion on the planned Phase 5-A mission, or a amateur satelite to Mars

http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/p5a-to-mars.pdf

And here is the main Phase 5-A website on AMSAT-DL, with text in both German and English:

http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/

Stuff like this makes you proud of holding a HAM license :-)

73s

Here is a PDF with some discussion on the planned Phase 5-A mission, or a amateur satelite to Mars

http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/p5a-to-mars.pdf

And here is the main Phase 5-A website on AMSAT-DL, with text in both German and English:

http://www.amsat-dl.org/p5a/

Stuff like this makes you proud of holding a HAM license :-)

73s

they have sent up private amateur radio satellites into earth orbit for years using some spare space in ESAs arianes since 1980.
they're a rather large group of scientists who work on the project for free in their spare time.

here are some infos in english (and german)

Rather old news perhaps, but the AMSAT organization planned to release a balloon in the martian atmosphere, in cooperation with the Mars society. Here's PDF document giving some details, and somewhere around there is an animation showing the balloon (admittedly quite boring).

While direct reception of Spirit and Opportunity is probably beyond the capabilities of single-amateur equipment, reception of a continuous wave (unmodulated carrier) beacon transmitted by the Mars Relay Radio System aboard the Mars Global Surveyor on the way to Mars was achieved by amateurs in 1996. At the time, the 1.3 Watt transmitter was approximately 5 million km away from Earth.

The Mars Express probe that launched the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander, and the Mars Orbiter in orbit around Mars, were both detected by this station in November last year, although it stretches the definition of "amateur" quite a bit; also by these guys with much more modest equipment.

For a real challenge, the New Horizons spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2006 to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt beyond, will employ beacon cruise mode, in which it will send a fixed tone (see page 42), designed for easier reception by amateurs, while cruising in deep space.

Additional information on amateur deep space reception is available here.

Join AMSAT, and help us open up space to the people!

Join AMSAT, and help us open up space to the people!

Specifically, it was used to de-spin the satellite from almost 18 RPM down to the desired 5 RPM.

Some more relevant quotes I found while looking around on the web about AO-40's system:

From http://www.amsat-dl.org/journal/adlj40ge.htm

Magnetorquer In the satellite, several electro-magnets, also named magnetorquer, are distributes that can be used in the interplay with the Earth's magnetic field close to perigee for the attitude-control of the satellite. The satellite acts as the rotor of an electric motor while the magnet-field of the Earth forms the stator. The process of this movement is named as magnetorquing. With the magnetorquing, the flight-attitude of the satellite and the spin-speed can be changed during perigee-passes.

From http://www.rac.ca/spacenws.htm:

The onboard magnetorquing system--which consists of solenoid coils--makes use of Earth's magnetic field to control the spacecraft's spin and orientation. Magnetorquing is most effective when Earth's magnetic field is strongest, so it typically only takes place at perigee--when the satellite is closest to the Earth. Ground controllers have been making incremental adjustments during each perigee.

I also remember someone saying that this was somewhat "experimental" on AO-40. I can't find a quote though...

I agree fully that it's good to see the NASA engineers thinking "Well it's broke, we can't send someone up to fix it, so what can we do to make it work?" What I would like to know is who came up with the original idea (pre AO-40, or this satellite). It sure doesn't seem like the type of thing which I would have thought about when trying to figure out how to control the attitude of a spacecraft.

Well, I don't know about other slashdotter's, but it's the gushing "gee-whizz, isn't this wonderful" attitude of the submission. It's not like it hasn't been done before, again, again, and again.

So did Slashdot. Yesterday.

Frankly, If we want to see the earth from space 'cuz it looks k00l, we should do it ourselves

Amateur Satellite geeks rule. And can do it a hell of a lot cheaper than Triana.

Amen.

If we want to see the earth from space 'cuz it looks k00l, we should do it ourselves.

Amateur Satellite geeks rule.

Look at the way-cool picture of the launch preparations here., or get more information about Phase 3D at here.

there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count

Some of the development systems for this experiment run Debian.

Check out the rest of the album. I found the emergency escape drills and the "spacesuits" worn while fueling the satellite with hazardous chemicals most interesting, after pictures of people I know :-) .

Thanks

Bruce

Some of the development systems for this experiment run Debian.

Check out the rest of the album. I found the emergency escape drills and the "spacesuits" worn while fueling the satellite with hazardous chemicals most interesting, after pictures of people I know :-) .

Thanks

Bruce