Success in the stars for satellite radio signals

Jennifer Holmes Arizona Daily Wildcat From left, physics senior Andrew Tubbiolo, aerospace engineering graduate student Christopher Lewicki, computer science junior Dana Irvin, and math junior Aaron Schultz (foreground) monitor the passing of a new satellite launched in conjunction with the Kennedy Space Center and the University of Alabama. Students for Exploration and Development of Space hope to launch more satellites in the future.

UA Students for the Exploration and Development of Space teamed up with Amateur Radio Club members to make the Old Engineering building the primary groundstation for receiving information from the satellite's two cameras. The satellite is used by amateur radio operators throughout the world to send messages to each other.

The satellite was launched from NASA's Deep Space 1 mission rocket, which exploded out of Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday at 8:08 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. It detached from the rocket about 90 minutes later to begin orbiting the globe.

University of Arizona students will be downloading images of the Earth and its atmosphere captured by satellite cameras and making them widely available on the World Wide Web. The satellite is equipped with panoramic and telephoto cameras and 12 filters.

Team members are creating software to transmit data directly from the satellite to the Web.

"When the satellite goes over, data will instantly go into the database and anyone in the world can read it," said Christopher Lewicki, organizer of the UA satellite station.

Guy McArthur, an Amateur Radio Club member, said the project marks the first time an amateur radio station will transmit real time information from a satellite to the Web. Because the satellite will pass over the UA periodically, the team cannot constantly download images.

They plan to design software to distribute to "ordinary people who have equipment like this in their backyards," Lewicki said. He said he hopes people worldwide will communicate with the satellite and put images on the UA Web site.

"It (the satellite) will have its own world-wide tracking network for free," Lewicki said.

Amateur radio operators in New Zealand and Portugal have already contacted Lewicki to tell him they received strong signals from the satellite as it soared by Saturday.

Due to a series of technical and practical difficulties, the UA team missed the satellite's first pass over Tucson.

"The radio is technically broken," Lewicki said.

Thanks to an electric shock, it had to be controlled by the computer instead of being operated manually.

The students spent all Friday night scrambling to make their low-budget equipment perform. Saturday's launch was originally scheduled for yesterday, but the UA team didn't hear about the schedule change until Friday afternoon.

By 8:20 a.m. Saturday, the team had exterminated the bugs and received a strong signal from the satellite overhead during its second pass. The team also conducted an uplink test, sending a number of information packets to the satellite.

By the satellite's third pass at 10:20 a.m., the team was able to decode the radio signals it received and verify that communications were successful and the satellite's systems were "healthy."

University of Alabama members of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space constructed the satellite and cameras and will be downloading its first images early next week.

The Alabama group is in regular contact with the UA members running the groundstation.

"They're flying some relatively new technology," Lewicki said.

The satellite keeps its balance by pushing against the Earth's magnetic field, which is unprecedented for such a small satellite, he said. It uses moderately advanced solar panels and an especially efficient type of battery uncommon in spacecraft.

While they await the satellite's first photographs, the UA team is working on automating operations.

Abram Detofsky, treasurer of the UA chapter, and physics senior Andrew Tubbiolo collaborated on the construction of a "trakbox," which mediates between their computer and radio antenna. When installed, the trakbox will use data from the computer to tell the antenna which way to point in order to pick up the satellite's signals.

"This way Guy (McArthur) won't have to shout numbers," Tubbiolo said. McArthur was dictating numbers from the computer screen during the satellite's second pass, telling team members its location and broadcast frequency so they could tune the radio accordingly.

Data received this weekend is the first payoff after almost three years of planning, Lewicki said.

To fund construction and operation of the station, he first unsuccessfully requested money from companies like Motorola. The team finally managed to scrape together $12,000 from grants, club funds and the UA planetary sciences and electrical and computer engineering departments.

The team experienced more hassles with the UA facilities management department over construction of the antenna, Lewicki said.

"From the time we had that money to the time the tower went up was seven months," he said. "It was long and arduous and painful."

After UA staffers constructed the tower foundation, Dana Irvin, president of the Amateur Radio Club, and Lewicki spent two solid days piecing together the antenna.

Judging from the excitement of the team members as the first satellite signal beeped across the radio, their efforts have paid off.

Aaron Schultz, president of the UA chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, said it is very unusual to have students operating a satellite station.

"There's a big push through NASA - they want to have every university building a satellite, but right now it's pretty rare," he said.

Sarah Spivack can be reached via e-mail at Sarah.Spivack@wildcat.arizona.edu.