In an effort to obtain data from the low Earth orbit weather satellite NOAA-15 (hey, why not?!), BLUEsat radio guru Gough Lui recently manufactured his own makeshift Quadrifilar Helix antenna using simple cardboard supports, superglue, coax, solder and stickytape. The satellite sends analog APT format weather images live as it passes overhead at least twice per day.

Gough was able to use his homemade antenna and an an iCom IC-R20 communications receiver in Narrow FM mode (16kHz) to track the satellite for a 7 minute pass over his house and record the data onto storage, after which it was downloaded and processed with WXtoImg. These images are shown above (left three), incorporating a land overlay produced by the software.

To improve the quality of these images by taking into account Doppler shift, Gough decided to use our newly refurbished groundstation antenna (see news story below) to obtain data from a 15 minute pass of NOAA-15. These spectacular images are shown above (right three). Congratulations Gough!

In order to communicate with amateur radio satellites, we operate a pair of cross-yagi directional antennas located on the roof of the Electrical Engineering building. These are mounted on an azimuth-elevation rotator which is remotely controlled by a PC in our groundstation. When tracking, the PC software regularly adjusts the attitude of the antennas to point them at a satellite as it races across the sky in low Earth orbit. The software also adjusts the receive frequency of the transceiver to compensate for Doppler shift from the fast-moving satellite.

Following years of use and environmental exposure, both our uplink (VHF) and downlink (UHF) antennas were looking worse for wear, so maintenance needed to be carried out. Taking up the task were BLUEsat members Gough Lui and William Du, who after a few months of sourcing components, redesigning a phasing harness, and employing facilities to rewire the rotator unit and replace all weathered parts, were able to oversee this important piece of maintenance work.

We are now happy to say that our revitalised antennas are back in the business of space communication! Testing has revealed standing wave ratios of 1.4:1 for our UHF antenna and 1.75:1 for our VHF antenna. The photos show Gough verifying the strength of safety cabling and an acrobatic William with the antenna mast.

The BLUEsat team have once again put on a show for the many visitors to UNSW as part of Open Day on September 5th 2009.

This year our setup consisted of two main features. The first was a display of our new satellite structure inside it's rotating mirror display case. The second was a hands on demonstration of component manufacture with a soldering booth.

We also made use of radios to communicate with each other throughout the day, with BLUEsat member Gough Lui recording the airwaves throughout the day. Out of about 45 minutes of raw recordings, these communications were cut down to around 20 minutes of audio, lowpassed at 5.5kHz for resampling to a rate of around 11kHz, notch filtered between 155-165Hz so as to remove the CTCSS tone, and then encoded into an MP3 - level 7 quality, mono, VBR 8-24Kbit/s file. This recording, including a few slightly humourous bits, can be downloaded from here (~3MB; right click and select "Save Link As").

The day was a fantastic success, with many members of the public coming up and chatting with us, eager to hear about our project.

With less than a few hours notice, BLUEsat legal executive member, President of the National Space Society of Australia, and hot shot lawyer Anthony Wicht enjoyed the opportunity to participate as a space advocate on ABC's 702 AM "Afternoons" talkback program earlier today, hosted by Angela Catterns. With challenging questions being thrown his way by eager callers to the show (as well as from Angela herself!), Anthony discussed issues such as the benefits of space programs and the ever-changing political landscape in which they operate. Well done Anthony!

Yes, you read the heading correctly! BLUEsat was recently invited by local blues band Stormcellar to come along to Sydney music venue The Basement to give a talk and show off some of our hardware at the launch of their latest EP entitled "Spacejunk." But before you make any connections between our satellite and junk in space, like the lead singer Michael Barry, we prefer to see the connection as BLUES-sat!

To start off the night as pre-entertainment before the main show, BLUEsat member Anthony Wicht delivered an eclectic presentation about the inspiring yet challenging pursuit of space flight, keeping the audience on their toes with questions like "is space hot?", and awing them with stories such as the less well known difficulties that Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov experienced when trying to get back into his spaceship after completing the first human spacewalk back in 1965, where in an extremely dangerous manoeuvre he had to unplug his oxygen umbilical cord for a brief moment in order to deflate his spacesuit so that he could fit back through the door! Anthony's talk was accompanied by the synthesised sounds of rOn.KnOb and some vintage video footage of human space flights.

Throughout the night, the new BLUEsat structure was on display in its rotating mirror case, much to the enjoyment of the public. Also of note was Sam the urban spaceman, who spent the night dancing in a full space suit, as well as helping people fake their own moon landings in front of a green screen!

The latest version of the BLUEsat satellite structure has recently been manufactured. This structure represents the first full-scale structural model of the satellite in our project's history, and as such is a major milestone. Manufacture of the structure took place within the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at UNSW, making use of the School's computer numerical controlled (CNC) 5-axis mill. Work is still underway within the team to complete the electronics that will be placed within this structure.

Photos of our unveiling ceremony are shown, where our Mechanical Team leader Chris Hales gave an overview of the structure and satellite in general. The empty structure is shown on top of an illuminated rotating mirror display, where various slots for connector cabling and screw holes for external solar panels can be seen. For a bit of audience participation, Chris Walsh was the first to come to the stage. His prize: to unwrap the first of our newly manufactured aluminium panels, which will be used to support the solar panels on BLUEsat.

Also shown are photos of Colin Tan receiving an award for his fantastic contributions to BLUEsat. Congrats!

Australian space science has emerged as a big winner from the 2009-2010 Commonwealth Budget. $40 million has been provided to establish an Australian Space Research Program, where the funds will be distributed through a competitive grants process. $8.6 million will also be provided to establish a Space Policy Unit within the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

Given the recent submission by BLUEsat to the Australian Senate Economics Committee into the Current State of Australia's Space Science and Industry Sector, the final report from which was titled "Lost in Space? Setting a new direction for Australia's space science and industry sector" (see news articles below), it is very positive to know our voices are being heard, and to see the Government acting on the Committee's recommendations. We look forward to this new chapter in Australia's involvement in space!

More Information can be found at the following websites:
* The Australian Space Science Program
* Space Science and Astronomy
* 2009-10 Commonwealth Budget

The final report by the Australian Senate Economics Committee into the Current State of Australia's Space Science and Industry Sector, titled "Lost in Space? Setting a new direction for Australia's space science and industry sector", has been released.

After receiving a number of written submissions and verbal testimonies, including those by BLUEsat (see two news articles below), the Inquiry concluded that Australia should gradually develop a dedicated space agency, focused in niche areas where our industry and space science talents can excel. A number of points raised by BLUEsat, articulated by our spokesperson Anthony Wicht at the Inquiry hearings at NSW Parliament House earlier this year, made it into the final report.

The report, (curiously) interlaced with numerous space references from popular culture, is wonderful news for those interested in the development of space science, policy, and industry in Australia. In particular, the Committee makes the recommendation that Australia (re)consider forging close links with an international space agency such as the European Space Agency (ESA), citing the success of Canadian industry since the Canadian Space Agency became an associate member of ESA.

For more information about the Inquiry, including a full copy of the final report containing 6 main recommendations, see:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/Committee/economics_ctte/space_08/index.htm.

Despite a day of wet weather, the BLUEsat team was out in full force with our biggest Open Day display ever! On show were solar panels, electronics such as the flight computer, a scale model of the satellite structure (although a new, much improved structure is currently in the works - stay tuned), information sheets on our various teams, new posters, and most impressively, a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) decoding demonstration with repeater support!!

Visitors were treated to bookmarks, insight into the project and the DTMF decoding experiment, where messages were printed to an LCD screen. Not only was this the most advanced BLUEsat public display ever, but it marked the beginning of a new chapter in BLUEsat's history, with the first successful public demonstration of wireless communications.

Congratulations to the many dedicated BLUEsat members who spent a large number of hard working hours preparing in order to make this year's display a great success.

Every year, the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA), the nation's body of professional astronomers, awards a prize for outstanding research in astronomy by an Honours student at an Australian university.

This year's Bok prize was awarded to BLUEsat member, past UNSW student and current University of Sydney PhD student Chris Hales, for research that led to a better understanding of a fast moving pulsar within a nebula known as The Mouse. Chris was invited to give a talk at the ASA Annual Scientific Meeting in Perth, where he was presented with a medal.

Chris was recently interviewed by SpaceInfo.com.au - have a read by clicking here.

Do you have what it takes?

The BLUEsat team has recently been expanded due to an influx of keen new members. They all share the common interest of working on a challenging and rewarding project and have already chosen areas of interest to work in, from the power system, to ground and space radios, and the telemetry system.

If you are interested in joining BLUEsat, particularly from a testing & evaluation viewpoint (students from a variant of mechanical engineering would be very well suited), please contact us. Apart from regular positions within the team, a number of our members have also gone on to complete their final year thesis on BLUEsat, so if you are a dedicated student who wants to take part in an engineering project that's out of this world (and doesn't mind the occasional bad pun), then get in touch.