ARISSat-1 development team meets in Phoenix

Many of the ARISSat team met in Phoenix over a weekend in late October to work on software integration, to assemble the spaceframe and to make final measurements for the new cables.

The team put in long hours at the Microchip facility where a number of new milestones were met.

• The satellite was commanded via a radio.
• New PSU (power supply unit) board was tested in the system.
• New ICU (Interconnect board) was tested in the system.
• New MPPT (Max Power Point Tracker) boards were tested with solar panels.
• New solar panel test structure was built and used to test the power system.
• The new 1k BPSK error correcting data was transmitted and received.
• New telemetry data was transmitted.
• Received data from the Russian experiment simulator and
transmitted it.
• Basic spaceframe was constructed.
• The US made Ag-Zn battery was assembled and activated and will be available for testing.

The team is working hard to get the satellite completely operational by early Dec 2009, when in-depth system testing will begin.

A NASA Safety Briefing for ARISSat-1 was held on Thursday 22 Oct 2009. The team was well prepared and only have a few items to provide additional descriptions for at the next safety review in December 2009.

The ARISSat-1 team also invites students from around the world to submit papers or other visual items that will be flown on the satellite.

Submissions should be in jpg or pdf format such as a paper or a study done on science, technology, engineering, or math. Items such as a drawing of space craft, schematic, journal kept on an educational topic, a story, photo or news article about a class doing a hands on educational project are acceptable.

The deadline for submission is this Sunday, November 15, 2009.

Send your files via e-mail to
Dave, AA4KN (aa4kn at amsat.org)
with a Cc: to Gaston, ON4WF,
gaston (dot) bertels (at) skynet (dot) be.

ARISS website
Amsat website