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AMSAT UK

26/07/2018 2555 views 7 likes
ESA / Education / ESEO

The AMSAT UK team is composed of four students from the University of Surrey and two radio amateurs who collaborate with the Surrey Space Centre.  Together they have developed a communications unit for ESEO that uses an L-Band downlink to connect a global network of students and amateur radio users to a single ground station. 

Involving students and amateur radio users around the world

Ben & Benedict finishing PCB Designs
Ben & Benedict finishing PCB Designs

The ESEO AMSAT UK Payload is an education and communications system that can be used by students and amateur radio users around the world. It performs digital signal processing to communicate with both the ground and subsystems on the spacecraft, and offers a real opportunity for schools, colleges, and universities to develop their understanding of science and engineering.  It can also be used as a regular voice transponder for amateur ‘ham radio’ users, and builds on the concept started with the FUNcube-1 CubeSat.

BPSK Testing
BPSK Testing

The ESEO mission has enabled students to develop new algorithms, processor systems, and radio systems during their university studies. The hardware and software development, together with the interaction with ESA and ESEO partners, is something that students rarely have access to. The payload also provides a redundant communications link for the mission and a linear transponder for voice communications and ranging experiments across the Earth.

Listen to Live Digital Data from space - direct to the classroom:

Engineering model of the combined computer and power system
Engineering model of the combined computer and power system

The mission objective of the AMSAT payload experiment is to provide a new educational outreach opportunity for schools and colleges, and a new communications system for radio amateurs.

  • The payload offers a real opportunity for schools, colleges, and universities to develop their understanding of science and engineering
  • It provides a new STEM resource for future generations of engineers and scientists
  • It provides, free, continuous, real-time and historical (Whole Orbit) data from ESEO directly to the classroom and new, advanced  processor and communications research for schools and universities.

AMSAT-UK team page.

Contact

Dr Chris Bridges
c.p.bridges@surrey.ac.uk 

Surrey Team & David Bowman
Surrey Team & David Bowman