SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS002
ARLS002 “Space Sailors” Seeking Download Help from Ham Radio Operators
ZCZC AS02
QST de W1AW
Space Bulletin 002 ARLS002
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington, CT December 2, 2025
To all radio amateurs
SB SPACE ARL ARLS002
ARLS002 “Space Sailors” Seeking Download Help from Ham Radio Operators
A group of students at Cornell University is seeking participation from
radio amateurs who are equipped with satellite stations for help in
listening for signals from a retroreflective laser sail that is
scheduled to be deployed later this week. The sail is currently attached
to a 1U CubeSat that was launched early Tuesday, December 2, 2025, from
the International Space Station, but will separate and become its own
free-flying spacecraft equipped with four tiny “ChipSat” flight
computers that will transmit telemetry data back to Earth.
This is the first flight of their ChipSats, and it is this data that the
students seek help detecting, according to Ph.D. candidate Joshua
Umansky-Castro, who has an amateur radio license, call sign KD2WTQ. The
light sail’s ChipSats will be transmitting data using the LoRa digital
protocol on 437.400 MHz. The sail, stowed within the CubeSat, is
expected to be released a couple of days after deployment – tentatively
this Thursday, December 4 – and will likely function independently for
no more than 48 hours due to the drag created by the sail.
Additional information, including LoRa parameters and links to a list of
compatible receivers and the decoder file, may be found at the
https://alphacubesat.cornell.edu site in the ChipSat Ground Station
Guide located at
https://cornell.app.box.com/s/n4se5ku0ltjb1of2piagfz1y7xa92n47.
It is hoped that the ChipSat and light sail will become the trailblazers
for future missions around the solar system, and one day to our closest
stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri.
NNNN
ARRL Western Washington Section
Section Manager: Robert M Purdom, AD7LJ
ad7lj@arrl.org