AMSAT

AMSAT is a name for amateur radio satellite organizations worldwide, but in particular the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT-NA) with headquarters at Kensington, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. AMSAT organizations design, build, arrange launches for, and then operate (command) satellites carrying amateur radio payloads, including the OSCAR series of satellites. Other informally affiliated national organizations exist, such as AMSAT Germany (AMSAT-DL) and AMSAT Japan (JAMSAT).

Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation
AbbreviationAMSAT
Formation1969
TypeNonprofit organization
PurposeDesigning, building, and operating experimental satellites; promoting space education
HeadquartersKensington, Maryland
Region served
North America
President
Clayton Coleman W5PFG
Main organ
Board of Directors
Websitehttp://www.amsat.org/

History

AMSAT-NA was founded in 1969 in Washington, D.C. to continue the efforts begun by Project OSCAR. Its first project was to coordinate the launch of OSCAR 5, constructed by students at the University of Melbourne.[1] Some design modifications were needed and were made by AMSAT members, and the satellite was successfully launched on January 30, 1970, on a NASA Thor Delta launch vehicle.[2]

AMSAT's next launch was AMSAT-OSCAR 6 (AO-6) on October 15, 1972. AO-6 was AMSAT's first long-life satellite, and was built with participants from Australia and West Germany. Command stations in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Hungary, Morocco, New Zealand, the United States and West Germany controlled the satellite, contributing greatly to its 4½ years of service.[3] Further launches continued to emphasize international cooperation, with AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) launching with a new transponder developed and built by Karl Meinzer and AMSAT Germany (AMSAT-DL). AMSAT Japan (JAMSAT) contributed a transponder to AMSAT-OSCAR 8 (AO-8).[4]

In order to launch its satellites, AMSAT has worked with space agencies and commercial launch contractors to develop new ways to take advantage of unused areas of launch vehicles. In return, AMSAT sometimes can negotiate a reduction or waiver of launch costs. One of the most significant is the Ariane Structure for Auxiliary Payloads (ASAP), developed and manufactured in partnership with the European Space Agency in 1990 for use on its Ariane 4 launch vehicle. AMSAT was again able to take advantage of unused space with the launch of AMSAT-OSCAR 40 (AO-40), occupying unused space on an Ariane 5.[1]

IPS

The IPS (Interpreter for Process Structures) programming language was specifically written for the RCA 1802 AMSAT Phase III satellite.[5][6]

The IPS threaded code language, developed for AMSAT Phase III, is the first known use of a high-level language on board a spacecraft.[7]

Another 16-bit IPS implementation was specifically developed to run on the ARM CPU in the IHU-2 on the AMSAT P3D.[8]

A 32-bit IPS implementation has been developed for the AMSAT P3E satellite and the AMSAT P5A mission to Mars, which also have ARM CPUs. Emulators for both the classic 16-bit and the 32-bit IPS language and development environment are available for many other systems.[9][10][11][12]

AMSAT organizations worldwide

From its first launch, AMSAT projects have had international scope. As of 2006, 21 countries have launched an amateur satellite. Many of these countries have their own AMSAT affiliate, some of which are noted below:

  • AMSAT Germany (AMSAT-DL, AMSAT Deutschland) has built and managed projects of several amateur radio satellites, notably AO-40.
  • AMSAT Japan (JAMSAT) has contributed to many satellites, in addition to launching its own satellites in cooperation with JAXA: the Fuji-OSCAR series.
  • AMSAT India (AMSAT-IN) launched its first amateur satellite, VUSat-OSCAR 52 in 2005 aboard an Indian Space Research Organisation PSLV rocket from Sriharikota, India.[13]
  • AMSAT United Kingdom (AMSAT-UK) built FUNcube AO-73 with AMSAT-NL, an Amateur CubeSat that was launched as part of a Russian Dnepr payload in November 2013.
  • AMSAT Italia (AMSAT-I) has built the HAMVIDEO TV transmitter for International Space Station.
  • AMSAT-CT is NGO for Education and Development is Portuguese VIP member of AMSAT-DL, funded by Aerospace Observatory in 1998 .
  • AMSAT-CT develop the prototype of the satellite CAMOESat-1 at Oeiras Aerospace Observatory facilities https://www.facebook.com/ariss.amsat.ct
  • AMSAT-NL Netherlands
  • AMSAT Brazil (AMSAT-BR)
  • AMSAT Philippines (AMSAT-PH), club call sign DX1O, Diwata-2 satellite is designated Philippines-OSCAR 101 (PO-101) and has the amateur call sign DW4TA.[14][15][16]

Phase system

The AMSAT Phase system describes an amateur satellite based upon its capabilities or mode of operation and roughly parallel the development of amateur satellites.

  • Phase 1: No solar cells (battery-powered only), short-lived, technology test-bed. Must be able to orbit to be classified as a satellite.
  • Phase 2: Long life using solar cells, communications capabilities, Low Earth Orbit.
  • Phase 3: Long life, more powerful communications, telemetry and command systems. Highly elliptical orbit, usually a Molniya orbit; usually the initial orbit is a geostationary transfer orbit, onboard propulsion systems boosting it to its final orbit. Because of the highly elliptical orbit, the satellite remains over an area for long periods of time, allowing amateurs longer contacts through the satellite.
  • Phase 4: Amateur satellite in geostationary orbit. Currently the only amateur radio transponders in orbit are a secondary mission aboard Es'hail 2, designated as QO-100 by AMSAT on 26 Feb 2019.[17]
  • Phase 5: Spacecraft capable of lunar or planetary missions.

Satellite names

Most amateur satellites do not receive their sequential OSCAR designation until after they are successfully in orbit, and then only at the request of the launching organization.[1] Regardless, amateur satellites will have been named by the organization that constructed it, and that name is frequently prepended to its OSCAR designation, resulting a name such as CubeSat-OSCAR 57. In conversation, names are usually abbreviated as CO-57 or similar.

A unique amateur satellite was SuitSat, an obsolete Russian space suit with a transmitter in it, which was launched in 2006 from the International Space Station. In a twist of fate, "Oscar" was the name given to an obsolete space suit by its young owner in the book Have Space Suit, Will Travel, by Robert A Heinlein. This book was originally published a year after the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik.

Satellites previously launched by AMSAT

The names of the satellites below are sorted in chronological order by launch date, ascending. The status column denotes the current operational status of the satellite. Green signifies that the satellite is currently operational, orange indicates that the satellite is partially operational or failing. Red indicates that the satellite is non operational and black indicates that the satellite has re-entered the earth's atmosphere. The country listing denotes the country that constructed the satellite and not the launching country.

Name (a.k.a.) Status Launched Country
AMSAT-OSCAR 6 (OSCAR 6, AO-6, AO-C, P2A) Non-Operational 1972-10-15 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (OSCAR 7, AO-7, AO-B, P2B) Semi-Operational 1974-11-15 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 8 (OSCAR 8, AO-8, AO-D, P2D) Non-Operational 1978-03-05 United States/Canada/Germany/Japan
AMSAT-OSCAR 10 (Phase 3B, AO-10, P3B) Non-Operational 1983-06-16 United States/Germany
AMSAT-OSCAR 13 (Phase 3C, AO-13, P3C) Decayed 1988-06-15 Germany
AMSAT-OSCAR 16 (Pacsat, AO-16, Microsat-1) Semi-Operational 1990-01-22 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 40 (AO-40, Phase 3D, P3D) Non-Operational 2000-11-16 United States/Germany
AMSAT-OSCAR 51 (Echo, AO-51) Non-Operational 2004-06-28 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 85 (Fox-1A, AO-85) Semi-Operational 2015-10-08 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 91 (Fox-1B, RadFxSat, AO-91) Operational 2017-11-18 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 95 (Fox-1Cliff, AO-95) Beacon Only 2018-12-04 United States
AMSAT-OSCAR 92 (Fox-1D, AO-92) Operational 2018-01-12 United States

Current projects

AMSAT-NA is currently building a series of 1U CubeSats to carry university experiments, including a camera, and mode U/V FM repeaters. The first two of these satellites, Fox-1A, and Fox-1B, were launched on 8 October 2015 and 18 November 2017 respectively and are currently operational and available for use.[18] Fox-1D (AO-92) was launched on 12 January 2018 on the PSLV-C40 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. Fox-1Cliff was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard the SpaceX Falcon-9 SSO-A rocket on 3 December 2018. These four Fox satellites contain FM transponders with uplink on the 70cm band and downlink on the 2 metre band.[19]

RadFXSat-2/Fox-1E, a variation of the Fox-1 series, carrying a mode V/U linear transponder has been accepted for a launch by the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative.[20]

AMSAT is also working on a Phase 4 mission to geosynchronous orbit and actively pursuing High Earth Orbit (HEO) opportunities.

Currently operating missions

AMSAT-NA operates the AO-7, AO-85, AO-91, and AO-92 satellites, which are open for general amateur use. The U.S. Air Force FalconSAT-3 was turned over to AMSAT for amateur radio use in late September 2017. AO-95 was launched aboard Spacex's Falcon-9 SSO-A mission on 2018-12-04 and was later determined to have poor to no RF reception capability, thus preventing commissioning and putting its FM transponder mission into indefinite suspension.

gollark: * note: has no documentation
gollark: Simply utilize zig, which is fairly good.
gollark: Suuuuuuuuure.
gollark: `_Whatever` is quite ugly.
gollark: Evidently, C needs better extension mechanisms.

References
  1. "Space Satellites from the World's Garage – The Story of AMSAT". AMSAT-NA. Archived from the original on October 5, 2006. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
  2. Martin Davidoff, K2UBC (2000). The Radio Amateur's Satellite Handbook. The Amateur Radio Relay League. pp. 1–13. ISBN 0-87259-658-3.
  3. Martin Davidoff, K2UBC (2000). The Radio Amateur's Satellite Handbook. The Amateur Radio Relay League. pp. 1–15–1–16. ISBN 0-87259-658-3.
  4. Martin Davidoff, K2UBC (2000). The Radio Amateur's Satellite Handbook. The Amateur Radio Relay League. pp. 1–16–1–18. ISBN 0-87259-658-3.
  5. Karl Meinzer (January 1979). "IPS, An Unorthodox High Level Language". Byte.
  6. James Miller, G3RUH; Paul Willmott, VP9MU; Stacey Mills, W4SM (2002). "IPS Programming". AMSAT. Archived from the original on 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2012-04-21.
  7. Jan King. "The Third Generation". "Orbit" September 1980. p. 15.
  8. Chuck Green; Peter Gülzow; Lyle Johnson; Karl Meinzer; James Miller. "The Experimental IHU-2 Aboard P3D". 1999.
  9. "IPS Project Home Page".
  10. "COSMAC 1802 on AMSATs running IPS".
  11. "IPS - High Level Programming of Small Systems".
  12. "IPS - High Level Programming of Small Systems for the AMSAT space projects".
  13. "About HAMsat". AMSAT-IN. Archived from the original on 2006-12-08. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
  14. Phillip Keane. "The Philippines’ Satellite Ham Radio Service Is Now Live".
  15. "Diwata-2 Designated Philippines-OSCAR 101 (PO-101)".
  16. "AMSAT-PH showcases Satellite Equipment".
  17. https://www.amsat.org/eshail-2-p4a-designated-qatar-oscar-100-qo-100/
  18. "AO-85 (Fox-1A) | AMSAT-NA". www.amsat.org. Retrieved 2016-05-24.
  19. "AMSAT Fox Operating Guide" (PDF). AMSAT. 2015. Retrieved 2015-10-04.
  20. "RadFxSat-2 (Fox-1E) Selected for Participation in NASA's CSLI". AMSAT-NA. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
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