05/23/2016
It's been a week since the St Thomas More Cathedral School's STMSat-1[1]
CubeSat was deployed from the International Space Station, and the spacecraft
has yet to phone home. Students and faculty and the Washington, DC-area grade
school now are pinning their hopes on a reboot signal that will be sent to the
satellite sometime soon.
"As with any satellite, you have to be able to communicate to kill it due to
security reasons," explained STMSat-1 STM Education Manager Emily Stocker in
response to an ARRL inquiry. "We built in a way to communicate to reboot, but
will not receive any information regarding the satellite's health or why we
have not heard from it. This was part of our mission plan - if not heard from
in 7 days, we would reboot. Cross your fingers!"
A Twitter[2] post on behalf of STMSat-1 put it more succinctly: "System reboot
today - bring me to life!"
Pupils at the school built STMSat-1 during a 4-year-long project, and the
satellite was launched to the ISS last December. After being placed in orbit
(it is object 41476[3]), the CubeSat initially continued roughly in the same
orbit as the ISS and of other satellites that also were deployed on May 16, but
it's been moving away a little bit each day. Stocker said last week that
STMSat-1 was supposed to turn itself on once its batteries were fully charged
and its mechanized antennas deployed.
The satellite is designed to transmit slow-scan television (SSTV) images of
Earth on 437.800 MHz FM, although at one point, Stocker said, the school's NASA
contact indicated they should try listening on 437.000 MHz. "Many people were
wondering why it was 'changed' to 437.000, and that was because NASA thought we
may be able to hear it there instead," Stocker told ARRL. She said NASA later
advised STMSat-1 watchers to go back to monitoring the CubeSat's
IARU-coordinated frequency of 437.800 MHz and to follow the STMSat-1 Twitter[4]
feed, @STMSat11, to stay up to date.
The satellite is the first to be designed and built by grade schoolers, who
were supported by NASA technical advisors and local radio amateurs. The
kit-built satellite initially had been set for release into space in
mid-February. That deployment was postponed until early March, however, before
being put on hold again. The satellite project is part of the school's STEM
(science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education initiatives.
NASA's Technology Demonstration Office provided the school with a mobile "clean
room" for the construction period and has been advising the school on tracking
the satellite. The space agency also provided the school with a ground station
antenna to receive its 70 centimeter signals, once the satellite comes to life.
NASA engineers programmed the operating frequencies for the transmitter in
early 2014 and have been working with the school post-deployment.
[1] http://www.stmsat-1.org/rmoc/
[2] http://www.twitter.com/
[3] https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/stations.txt
[4] http://www.twitter.com/
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