Vega rocket launchs on Monday

The first qualification Vega flight from the space center at Kourou in the Caribbean is scheduled to take place on February 13.

Vega is a new launch vehicle from ESA/Arianespace to handle small to medium-sized satellite payloads. It is a four-stage launcher tailored to carry the growing number of small scientific spacecraft and other lighter-weight payloads.

The first flight is carrying eight student built amateur radio satellites comprising seven CubeSats and a microsatellite called ALMASat, Arianespace have just released a video showing the payloads.

A full list of the satellites and frequencies and other information about the launch is listed on the Amsat-UK website http://www.uk.amsat.org/4180

ALMASat-1 – University of Bologna, Italy
437.465 MHz 1200 bps FSK and 2407.850 MHz
http://www.almasat.unibo.it/02_projects/almasat-1/almasat1.htm

e-st@r – Politecnico di Torino, Italy
437.445 MHz 1200 bps AFSK
http://areeweb.polito.it/ricerca/E-STAR/

Goliat – University of Bucharest, Romania
437.485 MHz 1200 bps AFSK
http://www.goliat.ro/

MaSat-1 – Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
437.345 MHz GFSK 625/1250 bps, CW
http://cubesat.bme.hu/en/

PW-Sat1 – Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
There are 5 modes of operation:
- Receive only – no downlink
- CW Beacon CW – On-Off Keying (OOK) CW 12 WPM on 435.020 MHz
- BPSK Beacon – BPSK 1200 bps AX25 (1 frame on 20 sec) on 435.020 MHz
- Control communication mode. Downlink BPSK 1200 bps AX25 on 435.020 MHz
- Voice Repeater mode (aka “AO-16″ mode) – uplink 435.020 MHz FM and downlink 145.900 MHz DSB
http://tinyurl.com/CubeSatPW-Sat

Robusta – University of Montpellier 2, France
437.325 MHz 1200 bps FM telemetry with one data burst of 20 secs every 1 min
http://www.ies.univ-montp2.fr/robusta/satellite/?lang=en

UNICubeSAT -University of Rome, Italy
437.305MHz 9600 bps FSK
http://www.gaussteam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97%3Aunicubesat&catid=36%3Aunicubesat&Itemid=145

There is a lot there to have a go at receiving with the old FUNCube Dongle! I will have to get around to finally construct myself a homebrew 70cm antenna in the next few days.