SimSat Balloon to Launch Next Week
A high-altitude balloon carrying Amateur Radio is being prepared for launch July 24 and 25 that will offer hams and students in Maryland, Washington DC and a 20 state region a special opportunity to participate in the operations.
"Balloon launches are being offered as part of a two-week science camp called Reach For The Stars! at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore," said Pat Kilroy, N8PK, a long time space and near-space experimenter and engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Within minutes of release from UMES, the balloon's radio footprint will grow to cover all of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and many adjoining states. At its peak of about 100,000 feet, the signals from the balloon will be heard by all within a 400 mile radius, reaching northward to Maine, westward out to Detroit and Cincinnati, and south to Savannah."
The first flight on the morning of Tuesday, July 24, is a practice flight. An Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) module will be flown along with a student-built "CricketSat" module. The CricketSat, conceived by Bob Twiggs, KE6QMD, is comprised of a small temperature sensing circuit connected to a tiny transmitter whose output audio tone frequency is proportional to the outside air temperature at altitude. The software used by participants to measure the tone frequency is DigiPan. "When you measure the frequency of the tone and record the time of day, then you can compare your figures to those on a look up table from the Web page to reveal both the air temperature around the balloon and its altitude at that particular time, respectively," Kilroy said.
The second flight will take place on the morning of the following day. Designated "SimSat-3B," it will carry a corner reflector experiment and possibly a cross-band repeater in addition to another APRS module and CricketSat.
The balloon's primary VHF frequency will be 144.390 MHz FM downlink APRS and on http://www.findu.com/. The HF Net frequency is 3860 kHz SSB, plus or minus other traffic. The VHF Net frequency is WA3ROW/R Salisbury on 146.820 MHz FM; this repeater employs a 156.7 Hz PL tone for access.
Amateur Radio operators are invited to participate. A list of tasks that hams can do either on their own or in groups, as well as additional mission details, is on Kilroy's Web page.
Page last modified: 02:42 PM, 19 Jul 2007 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
Copyright © 2007, American Radio Relay League, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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