%% AO-40, or How I Spent My Summer Vacation %% Copyright 2002 Bdale Garbee %% %% Revised for and presented to Debian Conference 2, 7 July 2002 %% %% Define the fonts we will use %% %deffont "standard" tfont "Arial.ttf" %deffont "typewriter" tfont "Times_New_Roman.ttf" %deffont "fixed" xfont "terminal" %% %% Default settings for special lines %% %default 1 leftfill, fore "black", back "white", bimage "background.bmp" %default 2 size 7, vgap 10, prefix " ", font "standard" %default 3 size 2, bar "gray70", vgap 10 %default 4 size 5, vgap 30, font "standard" %% %% Default settings for indented lines %% %tab 1 size 5, vgap 40, prefix " ", icon box "green" 50 %tab 2 size 4, vgap 40, prefix " ", icon arc "red" 50 %tab 3 size 3, vgap 40, prefix " ", icon delta3 "blue" 40 %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page %nodefault, font "standard", fore "black", back "white", bimage "background.bmp" %center AMSAT OSCAR 40 %size 8 "How Bdale Discovered DEBIAN" %size 6 Bdale Garbee, KB0G %size 5 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page Overview What are AMSAT and AO-40? How AMSAT led Bdale to Debian... Getting to Orbit Current Status How You Can Participate! What's Coming Next Pictures... %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page What are AMSAT and AO-40? AMSAT is a non-profit organization that builds and launches amateur satellites. AMSAT-NA is the North American organization, other countries have AMSAT-DL, AMSAT-UK, JAMSAT, etc. AO-40 is the satellite formerly known as "Phase 3D" the 40'th amateur satellite to successfully achieve orbit. a communications system for amateur radio operators, and a platform for scientific experiments. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page How AMSAT led Bdale to Debian... %center, newimage "ramtest2.gif" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page Getting to Orbit Launched 15 November 2000 on an Ariane 5 from French Guiana with PAS-1R and two STRV research microsatellites. The heaviest amateur satellite ever, the largest total mass ever taken to GTO, and a magnificent orbital insertion by Arianespace. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page Current Status Primary propulsion system "events" mean we never got to our intended orbit, but where we are is pretty good, after the arcjet was used to stabilize things. V, U, S1, and X transmitters, C receiver, and all omni antennas failed. V, U, and L receivers are known to work. S2, and K transmitters are known to work. Spin stabilized. Magnetorquing works, reaction wheels untested. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page Current Status RUDAK is up and running, and testing is underway. SCOPE works well. CEDEX yielded useful data... a new radiation belt? GPS yielded useful data... navigation outside the GPS constellation can work! MONITOR is untested. Limited transponder use is currently allowed, U/L -> S2, K. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page What our First "Good" SCOPE Picture Looked Like... %center, newimage "pic0100.gif" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page ... After a Little Image Processing! %center, newimage "RGB0100.gif" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page How You Can Participate! Acquire an S-band downconverter and antenna, IF receiver, and a PC with sound card and help acquire telemetry from the IHU! Get a ham radio license, and you can uplink... :-) Join AMSAT and help sponsor the ongoing operational costs for AO-40, and help fund our next project! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page What's Coming Next Digital Voice Mode Eagle Our next high-orbit satellite. Much simpler than AO-40. Echo Our next low-orbit satellite. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %page For More Info %center %size 10 http://www.amsat.org/ http://www.amsat-dl.org/