[SMCARA] Two Balloon Launch 9/29 from Wallops Island
A.J. Farmer
ajfarmer at spenet.com
Mon Sep 27 18:44:51 EDT 2004
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-AMSAT-BB at AMSAT.Org [mailto:owner-AMSAT-BB at AMSAT.Org] On Behalf
Of Pat Kilroy
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 3:44 PM
To: amsat-bb at AMSAT.Org
Subject: [amsat-bb] SimSat-1 Flight News Bulletin for East Coast USA
HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON EXPERIMENT ANNOUNCEMENT
Greenbelt, Md. -- September 27 (revision 1.1)
Attention Educators and Amateur Radio Mentors!
NORMALLY THE PUBLIC is not involved in an
engineering test flight. But if you have some help
(an Amateur Radio mentor) and some patience (because
not as much information is available pre-flight as
compared to once the SimSat project becomes
"operational") then the educational opportunities
of the process (and the fun) are expected to far
outweigh any potential frustrations of participating.
There are *two* expendable flights planned on the
same day, and you are invited to participate. You
are invited to copy the flight telemetry. Almost
like "working" a real satellite and setting up a
real satellite ground station. Only easier.
The telemetry is rather simple by AMSAT or NASA
standards, but that's on purpose. This "learner's
telemetry" is designed to stimulate high school
students in the mid-Atlantic USA area. (This
particular payload is similar to the "CricketSat"
as developed by Stanford University students, only
more enhancements, courtesy of two NASA student
interns from WPI university this fall in the SimSat
Development Lab. Check your favorite web search
engine for background on CricketSat.)
The SimSat telemetry consists of a series of audio
tones that each represent a temperature. You can
measure an audio frequency using DigiPan, for example,
and then find the respective temperature from a look
up table that we will supply soon. The tone
frequencies will lie between about 5500 Hz and
800 Hz. As the temperature slowly decreases the
tone frequency will slowly decrease. See the
section below on the telemetry cycle.
Some of the needed information might not be available
until shortly after the flight. That should not stop
you from taking time-stamped measurements. Please
feel free to record any parts or all of the mission
audio.
Participants are encouraged to share their discoveries
after the mission.
---------------------------------------------------
FLIGHT DESIGNATION: SimSat-1A
WHEN
Balloon release will be no earlier than (NET)
Wednesday, September 29, 2004 at 1300z (9 a.m.
EDT).
FLIGHT RADIO BEACON FREQUENCY
433.8 MHz FM (prime), 445.925 MHz (back-up).
FLIGHT CALLSIGN
N8PK/Aeronautical Mobile
---------------------------------------------------
FLIGHT DESIGNATION: SimSat-1B
WHEN
No earlier than (NET) Wednesday, September 29, 2004
at 1900z (3 p.m. EDT). No later than (NLT) Thursday,
September 30, 2004 at 1930z (3:30 p.m. EDT).
FLIGHT RADIO BEACON FREQUENCY
433.8 MHz FM (prime), 147.45 MHz (back-up), 445.925
MHz (back-up).
FLIGHT CALLSIGN
N8PK/Aeronautical Mobile
---------------------------------------------------
"HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON EXPERIMENTERS NET"
Radio Frequency: 7203 kHz (prime), 7255 kHz (back-up).
Net Control Station: WA3NAN (prime), TBD (back-up)
This will be your LIVE source of launch and tracking
information during each flight.
Hugh W3FUO will be NCS at the Goddard Amateur Radio
Club station WA3NAN in Greenbelt, Maryland for at
least the morning shift, and John K3CLG will be NCS
for the afternoon.
We don't have any back-ups for NCS in case of launch
delays or staffing. Maybe someone on the net will
volunteer!
If you don't hear our net on 7203 because we had to
move then go visit the East-CARS net on 7255 kHz.
We will have left them a message to tell you where
we went. Those guys on 7255 are a great bunch and
they'll no doubt say, "If you get lost again then
come on back to East-CARS".
LAUNCH POINT
Each balloon release will be from Wallops Island,
Virginia, which is on the Atlantic coast near
Chincoteague Island and the Assateague Island national
seashore. The location is at 37 deg 56 min North
latitude, 75 deg 28 min West longitude. That's at
about 110 miles SE of Washington, D.C.
HEARING SIMSAT
Shortly after launch, the SimSat capsule will rise high
enough for all schools within over 300 miles of the
balloon to be in radio reception range of the telemetry.
That covers all of Virginia, D.C., Maryland, Delaware,
parts of West Virginia, southeast Pennsylvania, southern
New Jersey and more.
To tell when you should start hearing the SimSat
telemetry beacon in your area, find out how far you are
from Wallops Island as "the crow flies." If you use
mapblast.com or mapquest.com then you may type in the
23337 ZIP Code alone for Wallops if you wish.
The higher the balloon ascends, the radio beacon will
cover more area and more distance. We might reach
100,000 feet in altitude within 108 minutes. That
is beyond more than 99% of the earth's atmosphere!
And signals from our SimSat antenna at that height will
reach an area (centered on the ground below the
balloon) with a radius of over 400 miles.
If you are within 100 miles of Wallops then you should
start to hear the beacon within about five minutes of
launch and for the whole 2.5-hour flight. If you are
within 200 miles of Wallops then you should hear the
beacon within about 25 minutes of launch and for a
total of about 110 minutes. If within 300 miles then
about 55 minutes after launch and for a total of 65
minutes. If within 400 miles then 96 minutes after
launch and for a total of about 15 minutes.
SELECTING A RADIO
If you don't have a ham radio then use a scanner.
Set up your radio and antenna outside. An outside
antenna will get the best reception. Pick a radio
with an external antenna jack so that you can
connect a good antenna to it. Tuning the exact
radio frequency will be easier if your radio can
tune in at least 5 kHz increments. A larger step
size might be too coarse. A 1 kHz step size might
be ideal. If you wish to connect your radio to
the sound card line-input of a PC (to measure audio
tone frequencies with DigiPan 1.7, use the freeware
from www.digipan.net -- DON'T type in .com or .org)
then make sure you have either an external speaker
jack or a headphones jack on the radio.
THE TELEMETRY CYCLE
First tone: REF or "reference". We will give you the
answer to the first one! It is designed to remain at
the same frequency through out the flight. You may
use it to calibrate your equipment. About 14 seconds
in duration, followed by 14 seconds of silence.
Second tone: OAT or "outside air temp". You'll see the
greatest change in this tone. The sensor hangs outside
the SimSat insulated capsule during its flight through
the earth's atmosphere. It gets quite cold outside,
very nearly -60 degrees C. As an added bonus, if you
keep track of the exact time that you copy the OAT tone,
you will be able to convert it further to obtain the
balloon altitude. More on this later. 14 seconds in
duration, followed by silence.
Third tone: IAT or "inside air temp". Measuring the
temperature of the inside of the capsule will help
our SimSat designers determine how well the thermal
properties of the insulation material performs. This
will be good to know to prepare better for future
flights. 14 seconds in duration, followed by silence.
Fourth tone: MIX, or an audio mix of all three tones
together, really, plus many subharmonics that you might
enjoy navigating through on your "waterfall" spectrum
display. 14 seconds in duration, followed by silence.
Fifth tone: ID, or station identification and brief
commercial message recognizing a sponsor or participant.
14 seconds in duration, followed by silence. Then the
cycle repeats continuously through the balloon's
journey.
THE RESULTS
Participants are encouraged to share their results
after the mission. Share one or more of the
following: your ground station configuration, a
description of your procedure, who participated with
you, your results, any post-flight analysis, lessons
learned, conclusions or recommendations.
TAKE A PICTURE
Lighten up! Take a picture or two of yourself, one
or more students "in action" or of your test set up.
Please send me a copy either by e-mail at
Patrick.L.Kilroy at nasa.gov or by snail mail at my
"mail code" address in my signature file below. I
will post some of the pictures on the web.
Thank you!
MORE INFORMATION
Outside of SimSat Flight News Bulletins being posted
to the web (soon at www.patkilroy.com/simsat/) the
best sources are a local Amateur Radio operator, an
AMSAT member and, during the flight, the 40-meter
shortwave Net.
I will post some of my results after the mission.
Good luck and good copy!
Sincerely,
Pat Kilroy (N8PK)
SimSat Principal Investigator
SimSat Flight News Bulletin Archive at
http://www.patkilroy.com/simsat/ soon.
P.S.
Students! To help your favorite educator find a
local ham radio mentor, you can first find all the
ham radio clubs in your community (by ZIP Code) at:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/club/clubsearch.phtml
For info about real Amateur Radio *satellites* visit
AMSAT at http://www.amsat.org/ (explore all here), and
http://patkilroy.com/amsat-dc/ (for Washington DC area)
and http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/information/ac.php
(to contact nearby AMSAT Area Coordinator helpers).
====================================================================
Patrick L. Kilroy WK
Integration & Test (I&T) Manager 301-286-1984 voice
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 301-286-1673 fax
Building 5, Mail Code 568 Patrick.L.Kilroy at nasa.gov
Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 http://simsat.gsfc.nasa.gov
====================================================================
Find me <http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=n8pk-9&radar=***>
Inspiring the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.
----
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