Asking for Cooperation

UNITEC-1 signal reception system

Please see the following page for details for the beacon reception.
UNITEC-1 signal reception system

Format information on FSK packet of each university

Please refer to the following file if you can cooperate also in the analysis of the data of UOBC.
About the UNITEC-1 telemetry(in Japanese)

UNITEC-1 data of ground experiment

It is real data in the ground experiment of UNITEC-1. (acquisition on April 9)

1. Sound of CW transmission of about 30 minutes (transmission sound in which 5.84GHz is downconverted to 435MHz)
2. Sound of FSK transmission of about five minutes in majors communication (one that it downconverts to 435MHz and FM was recovered)
3. Change according to transmission time of transmit frequency of UNITEC-1 (one by temperature change of departure pendulum)

Call for Support on Tracking and Receiving RF Signal for First Interplanetary University Satellite UNITEC-1

Please read this file.
Ver.1

On the Use of Amateur Frequency Band and Call for Support of Reception of Signal for Deep Space Satellite "UNITEC-1" Flying towards Venus

"Unitec-1" is a satellite (or "an artificial planet" as it will escape the Earth gravitational field) which will be launched into Venus transfer orbit by H-IIA launch vehicle with the main payload of "Planet-C" (Venus orbiter developed by JAXA, Japan) on 2010 (plan). It has the following engineering missions

1. Onboard computers developed by several universities will be tested in the harsh space environment in the form of a competition; i.e., the computer which can survive to the last in the radiation-rich deep space environment will win the competition.
2. Technologies to receive and decode very weak and low bit rate signal coming from deep space will be developed and experimented.
3. Technologies to estimate orbit and signal Doppler shift of the satellite based on the received RF signal will be developed and experimented. These technologies are essential for tracking and receiving signals from a satellite in deep space.

As to 2) and 3), we would like to call for fundamental support from radio amateurs, all over the world. For example, we would be very happy if the radio amateur, individuals or groups, would improve and test the technologies in the above 2) and 3) fields using signal coming from UNITEC-1, and if they could provide us with the received data, by which we would be able to continue our engineering experiments 1) further into the deep space. As the signal from UNITEC-1 is mainly CW beacon of about 1 bps speed, it would also be possible to duplicate the received signals from several antennae to make S/N ratio higher so that we can decode the signal from UNITEC-1 while flying further away from the Earth. This experiment can also be performed in a competition style. We would greatly appreciate it if radio amateurs would propose us interesting experiments or competitions as above making the most of UNITEC-1 launch and operation opportunity.

UNITEC-1 has been developed by 20 universities of UNISEC (University Space Engineering Consortium), which is Japanese university community developing nano-satellites. Some universities have already launched their nano-satellites (such as University of Tokyo�fs XI-IV, XI-V, Tokyo Institute of Technology's CUTE-1, CUTE-1.7+APD, etc) and conducted various experiments using amateur frequency for the improvement of RF and satellite technologies, through which we could construct good relationships with radio amateur community. In the UNITEC-1 project, we would like to use amateur frequency band again for space radio communication, as this does not aim for commercial use but for self training, communication and research activity based on individual interest in radio communication, and also in order to facilitate the collaborations with the radio amateurs.

In order to inform our activities to radio amateurs all over the world, we have been updating our home page with latest information (such as orbit parameters, data formats and current condition of our satellite). Besides, we are collaborating with JARL/JAMSAT to call for participation and support of as many radio amateurs as possible in this project. UNITEC-1 will be the first university developed interplanetary satellite as well as the first amateur interplanetary satellite, and we sincerely hope that UNITEC-1 will provide unique and exciting opportunity for the radio amateurs all over the world to enjoy reception of signals from deep space.