AMSAT designates Delfi-C3 as DO-64

Bill Tynan, W3XO issued the following statement on behalf of the AMSAT Board of Directors this week:

By the authority vested in me by the AMSAT-NA President, I am pleased to issue an OSCAR number for the amateur radio satellite, Delfi C-3.

As attested to in a communication to the AMSAT-NA Board of Directors dated 8 May, 2008, from Wolter Jan Ubbels, the spacecraft's Project Manager; Delfi C-3 was successfully launched 28 April, 2008 from India aboard a Polar launch vehicle. Mr. Ubbels also states that the satellite was successfully commissioned and is currently transmitting telemetry on the 2 meter amateur band. In addition to its 2 meter downlink, Delfi C-3 has an uplink on the 70 cm band.

According to Mr. Ubbels, this newest amateur satellite was developed by a team of some 60 students and facility members in the fields of Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science from various polytechnic schools in The Netherlands. Further, he states that Delfi C-3 carries 2 experiments, one involving thin film solar cells developed by Dutch Space and the other, an Autonomous Wireless Sun Sensor from the Dutch Government Research Institute (TNO).

Mr. Ubbels' letter says that Delfi C-3 has been duly coordinated through the Region 1 IARU representative, Mr. Graham Shirville, G3VZV, and that the satellite meets all of the criteria necessary to be issued an OSCAR number.

In response to the information provided by Mr. Ubbels, I hereby issue the designation Delfi-C3 OSCAR-64 or Dutch OSCAR-64. The shortened version of either of these two designation would, of course, be, DO-64.

AMSAT-NA is pleased to welcome DO-64 into the family of amateur Radio satellites. We are hopeful that it will fulfill its intended mission of furthering education and increasing interest in the Amateur Radio space program.
We congratulate all of those responsible for designing, building, testing and launching this new Amateur Radio satellite and look forward to its long and productive life.

73,
William A. (Bill) Tynan, W3XO