Australian CubeSat to use 76 GHz

The IARU Satellite Coordination Panel has announced the amateur radio frequencies for the Australian 76 GHz CubeSat CUAVA-1 that is expected to launch in July 2019.

CUAVA-1 is a 3U CubeSat and the first CubeSat project of the new ARC Training Centre for CubeSats, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and their Applications (CUAVA), whose primary aim is the education and training of people, mostly PhD students, for the space sector.

With significant heritage from the QB50 CubeSat INSPIRE-2, CUAVA-1 is a 3U CubeSat that will link with the international radio amateur community for outreach, training, and increased data downloads, observe the Earth with a novel multi-spectral imager, use a GPS instrument to explore radio occultation and the reception of GPS signals scattered off the Earth as well as provide a backup determination of the CubeSat location, investigate plasma environment and associated space weather with radiation detectors, and explore the performance of a new communications payload.

This mission addresses issues of radio technique interesting to the radio amateur community in the following ways:

1) Global Radio Amateur Participation in Mission and Data Downlinking We will work with radio amateurs and other groups to receive and decode the spacecraft beacon and downlinked data, with subsequent transfer to the internet database (ideally the SatNOGS database).

2) Student and Radio Amateur Participation in the Groundstation We will train students and desiring radio amateurs in the setup and use of a groundstation hosted by the University of Sydney and then have these people operate the groundstation (including control of the satellite and managing the uplink and downlink) and transfer downlinked data into an internet database (ideally the SatNOGS database).

3) Radio Wave Propagation The ionosphere, thermosphere, and lower atmosphere have multiple effects on the propagation and absorption of radio waves and microwaves.

4) Communication Protocols Modulation techniques that will be investigated for the high-speed communications experiment include QPSK, 16-QAM and CPFM. If successful, this technology for wavelengths below 10 cm will increase the data transfer rates by at least 4 orders of magnitude while also decreasing the sizes of antennas and the associated spacecraft.

5) Radiation Effects on Electronic Components The Low Earth Orbit (LEO) environment is protected from cosmic rays, solar particles, and particles trapped in the Van Allen Belts by Earth’s magnetic field.

6) Attitude and Position Determination Reception and analysis of GPS signals by the onboard GPS receiver will determine the spacecraft’s attitude and location as a function of time, thereby determining the satellite’s orbit.

Proposing to downlink telemetry on 9k6 GMSK AX25 on UHF and high speed downlinks on 2.4 GHz, 5.6 GHz and 76 GHz. Planning a launch from Japan in July 2019 into a 400 km orbit.

These frequencies have been coordinated by the IARU:
Downlinks: 437.075 MHz, 2404.000 MHz, 5840 MHz and 76.800 GHz
Uplinks: 145.875 MHz, 2404.000 MHz and 5660.000 MHz

For more details see the original AMSAT-UK story - Link

More information on CUAVA-1 can be found at
Link
Link

IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination pages Link

Page Last Updated: Friday 12 April 2019 at 22:29 hours by Justin Giles-clark

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