At 19.11 UTC 19th June 2014, the DNEPR launch vehicle left the pad at Yasny and successfully delivered more than 30 objects into the expected orbit about 600km above the surface of the earth.
Amongst those objects were the two QB50 precursor spacecraft and good signals were heard from both in less than ten minutes from their deployment by ZS2BK, ZS5SB and ZS1HD in South Africa.
Both of these spacecraft carry amateur radio payloads:
QB50p1 has a 145.815 MHz BPSK telemetry downlink and carries the FUNcube-3 400 mW inverting linear 435/145 MHz transponder provided by AMSAT-NL with support from AMSAT-UK.
– 435.035-435.065 MHz Uplink LSB
– 145.935-145.965 MHz Downlink USB
QB50p2 has a 145.880 MHz BPSK telemetry downlink and carries a 435/145 MHz FM transponder and FX25 data transmitter from AMSAT-F.
o 145.840 MHz 9600 bps FSK FX25
It is expected that the AMSAT payloads will be activated after a few months of operation of the science payloads.
Our thanks go to the stations in South Africa who received the first signals and also to the ISIS teams both at the launch site and at their HQ in Delft. A job very well done!