Greetings from University of Southern California ISI SERC AENEAS
We, at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA - USA, are pleased to inform you that we are awaiting the launch of our Cubesat "Aeneas". it will be of great assistance if you can help track the satellite beacon signal when it makes a pass over your ground station(s) and let us know about the information you receive. Below are the details you may require to track the satellite:
Launch Date September 13th, 2012
Launch place: Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V United Launch Alliance (NROL 36)
Launch Window/time : 1:45 to 4:15 p.m. PDT according to http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av033/status.html
Communication Systems:
Call Sign : KE6YFA
Center Frequency : 437.6MHz
Bandwidth : 25KHz
Modulation : AFSK
Data rate : 1200bps
Tx Power : 1 W (30dBm)
Antenna : Monopole Whip - linear polarization (horizontal/Vertical depending on satellite attitude)
Beacon transmitted every 10 seconds except over USC ground station
TLE will be updated on the website http://www.isi.edu/projects/serc/aeneas_amsat_trackingas soon as possible.
Example of the raw telemetry format:
KE6YFA-1>CQ,TELEM:
4341455255531D0040020001010B0600181EFB030000001000F075007E7213004167DB45A7A407
You can also download a small java decoder software to decode the raw downlinked information from http://www.isi.edu/projects/serc/aeneas_telemetry_data_qsl_card
Kindly request you to report the following details:
Your ground station information (Latitude, Longitude, frequency measurement equipment brand and model,
Each beacon’s received time (local time)
Received frequency
We'll be glad to hear from you with the requested information. You may email us the tracking details on aeneas@astronautics.usc.edu with the word "pass" in the subject line.
For further updated information, reply back to this email or log on to http://www.isi.edu/projects/serc/aeneas_amsat_tracking
The initial orbital parameters point to us having a "communications blackout" for about 9 hours where we don't hear anything for that amount of time after the deployment in the North American continent. If anyone on the other side of the world could tune in and help us out, even give us a ping that they have heard from our bird, that would be immensely helpful. We are expecting a deployment time of approximately 3 hours after launch.
Thank you for your help
AENEAS team
USC - ISI - SERC
