AMSAT-UK

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ESEO Project Update October 2016

Posted: 23 Oct 2016 04:42 AM PDT
https://amsat-uk.org/2016/10/23/eseo...-october-2016/

Chris Bridges 2E0OBC and Pete Bartram from Surrey Space Centre with the
AMSAT-UK FUNcube-4 payload and some of the ESEO electronics

A team of three from AMSAT-UK and Surrey Space Centre visited Forli in
Italy in mid-October where the Engineering Model of the ESEO satellite is
being assembled.

ESEO, The European Student Earth Orbiter, is a 50 kg satellite from ESA
Education incorporating payloads from AMSAT-UK and Universities around
Europe.

The AMSAT-UK FUNcube-4 payload will provide a 1260/145 MHz FM transponder
and 145 MHz 1200 bps BPSK telemetry beacon to provide a telemetry downlink
that can be easily received by schools and colleges for educational
outreach purposes. The data will be displayed in an attractive format and
provide stimulation and encouragement for students to become interested in
all STEM subjects in a unique way.

The target audience is primarily students in Secondary andÂ*Higher
education, the project includes the development of a simple and cheap
“ground station� operating on VHF frequencies in the Amateur Satellite
Service. The ground station would comprise an omni-directional antenna
feeding a FUNcube DonglePRO+ SDR receiver which will receive the signals
direct from the satellite and transfer the data to specially developed
graphical software running on any Windows laptop.
David Bowman G0MRF holds the ESEO bottom plate during the fit check of the
L band patch antenna

During the visit to Forli, the team began work integrating the AMSAT-UK
payload into a FlatSat version of ESEO at the facilities of Sitael, who are
the prime contractor for the mission. One of the main objectives was to
check communication between the payloads CAN bus, the ESEO On-Board Data
handling system (OBDH) and the science payloads. Until now the
communication between units, using the CAN-Open protocol had only been
simulated as each part of the satellite had been assembled in a different
part of Europe. After a tense few hours and a few inevitable refinements to
the firmware, data started flowing as planned and another milestone had
been achieved.

When on orbit, the ESEO AMSAT-UK payload will transmit telemetry on 145.930
MHz at 1200 bps for educational outreach in a similar way to the FUNcube-1
satellite (AO-73). Additionally, In the event of a failure of the main 2.2
GHz S-Band transmitter, the payload will act as a redundant communications
system for transmitting science data. To achieve this the payload can
increase its transmission rate to 4800bps.

The team also carried out a fit check for the circular polarised L band
patch antenna and checked out the L band to VHF FM transponder.

The flight model of ESEO is due to be delivered at the end ofÂ* the 2nd
quarter of 2017. An Invitation to Tender for the launch has been issued by
ESA.
Watch An RF look at ESEO by David Bowman G0MRF


2016 International Space Colloquium Presentations Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/user/AMSATUK/playlists
ESEO https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/communications/eseo/