11/04/2019

AMSAT reports that on November 2, a Cygnus cargo spacecraft carrying the University of Washington's student-built HuskySat-1[1] CubeSat was successfully launched atop a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket. The Cygnus will dock with the International Space Station (ISS) today, November 4.

Cygnus is then scheduled to depart the ISS on January 13, 2020, and raise its orbit to approximately 500 kilometers (310 miles), where HuskySat-1 and SwampSat will be deployed. After deployment, HuskySat-1's 1,200 bps BPSK beacon on 435.800 MHz should be active and decodable with the latest release of FoxTelem. HuskySat-1 is expected to run its primary mission for 30 days - testing a pulsed plasma thruster and experimental 24 GHz data transmitter - before being turned over to AMSAT for amateur radio operation. HuskySat-1 features a 30 kHz wide 145 to 435 MHz linear transponder for SSB/CW.

"Usually people buy most of the satellite and build one part of it," said Paige Northway, a doctoral student who's been involved with the project since inception. "We built all the parts. It was a pretty serious undertaking."

For more information about HuskySat-1's development and its science, read the UW News article, "Washington's first student-built satellite preparing for launch[2]." - Thanks to AMSAT News Service via SpaceNews.com; Paul Stoetzer, N8HM, and UW News


[1] https://sites.google.com/uw.edu/huskysatellitelab/home
[2] https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/10/31/washingtons-first-student-built-satellite-preparing-for-launch/

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