Radar Fence Transponder (also called Navy-OSCAR 60 or RAFT 1) was an amateur radio satellite that was developed and built for training purposes at the United States Naval Academy.[2] The 3 kg (6.6 lb) heavy RAFT had a cubic structure of 12.7 cm (5.0 in) edge length and therefore did not meet the Cubesat standard. Solar cells on all six sides of the satellite were used to supply energy. It had neither position control nor drive systems.
RAFT contained a receiver at 216.98 MHz for calibration experiments of the U.S. Navy Space Surveillance Radar. For amateur radio connections there was an AX.25 digipeater on 145.825 MHz with built-in speech synthesizer on board.
Two fixed antennas equipped with springs were used for communication and also as a separation system for the almost identical sister satellite MARScom. Furthermore, a 122 cm (48 in) long wire antenna made of 0.5 mm (0.020 in) nitinol wire for the 10 m amateur radio band was unwound on shortwave during the disconnection process, with which the satellite received signals in the PSK31 operating mode.[3]
Mission
The satellite was released on 21 December 2006 with Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-116) from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
On 30 May 2007, it was re-entered on Earth atmosphere.
See also
References
- ^ Gunter Dirk Krebs. "RAFT1 (NO 60, Navy-OSCAR 60) / MARScom (NMARS)". Gunter's Space Page. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- ^ United Nations Secretariat (17 September 2007). "Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space". Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- ^ U.S. Naval Academy Amateur Radio Club (22 November 2004). "Operations of RAFT in the amateur satellite service". Retrieved 20 February 2020.
External links
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