Two radio amateurs win signal challenge
Congratulations to radio amateurs Mike Rupprecht from Germany and Edson W. R. Pereira from Brazil who rose to the challenge issued by ESA’s Education Office and caught the first radio signals emitted by the AAUSAT5 CubeSat!
Mike received the first signal on 5 October at 19:55 CET, in Germany, whereas Edson received his in Brazil on 6 October at 11:30 CET.
They will both be receiving prizes from ESA that include a 3D printed AAUSAT5 CubeSat.
AAUSAT5 is a student-built satellite that was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) on 5 October at 16:05 CET, together with ESA’s technology demonstration CubeSat GomX-3. They are the first ESA CubeSat projects to be launched from the ISS.
AAUSAT5 was built by a team of students from Aalborg University in Denmark. In addition to the educational challenge, the technical objective set for AAUSAT5is to conduct in-orbit testing of an improved Automated Identification System (AIS) receiver. The AIS is a system developed to track and identify ships and other vehicles with an AIS responder that are transiting away from coastal areas and into remote areas. The system’s objective is to enable the safe use of new sea shipping lanes.
