Hitchin' a Ride. . .
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| Interplanetary satellite Shin’en 2 |
A Japanese space mission to visit an asteroid launched in
early December included two hitch-hikers, amateur radio satellites Shin'en 2
(JG6YIG) and ARTSAT2:DESPATCH (JQ1ZNN), the two latest ham satellites to
venture beyond Earth orbit (a recent Chinese moon mission also carried a
downlink-only ham satellite). According to the ARRL Letter, the two satellites
will have an elliptical deep-space orbit around the sun, between Venus and
Mars. The satellites should remain in Earth's equatorial plane and their orbit
will take them between 65 million and 121 million miles from the Sun.
Shin'en 2 carries a CW beacon and a telemetry transmitter,
as well as a digital store-and-forward transponder with an uplink on 2 meters
and a downlink on 70 centimeters. ARTSAT2:DESPATCH carries a sculpture built by
a 3D printer as well as a 7-watt transmitter sending out CW on 437 MHz. The
satellite carried only batteries and no solar panel, so its estimated operating
time was only about one week. One of the first reception reports, according to
the AMSAT News Service, came from Michal Zawada, SQ5KTM, who reported
monitoring both satellites two days after launch from a distance of
approximately 1.1 million kilometers, or 683,500 miles, from Earth.
A third satellite, called SpinSat, was launched November 28
from the International Space Station. Built by the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory, its prime mission is to test new nicro-thruster technology. But it
also carries an amateur packet radio store-and-forward system on 437.230 MHz.
It was expected to operate for approximately six months.
