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SOUTHERN AFRICAN AMATEUR RADIO SATELLITE ASSOCIATION (SA AMSAT)
Registered as a
non-profit organisation by the South African Department of Social
Development UPDATED 16 November 2008 |
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SA AMSAT
SA AMSAT PAYLOAD ON SUMBANDILASAT
10 August 2008 ZS5FR's Satellite Report on
Amateur Radio Mirror
INTERNET STREAM
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SUMBANDILASAT TO BE
LAUNCHED FROM
BAIKONUR It is official! South Africa’s second satellite, SumbandilaSat, will be launched from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in the December to March time frame. Baikonur Cosmodrome is the launch
complex where Sputnik 1, Earth's first artificial satellite, was
launched. SumbandilaSat was first scheduled for launch on a Sthil rocket from a Russian submarine but due to political issues between various departments in Russia the plan was aborted and DST began a search for a new launch opportunity. Some concerted behind the scenes diplomatic resulted in the Russian agreeing to honour the contract and shift the launch to Baikonur. SumbandilaSat has been unpacked and is undergoing testing at SunSpace in Stellenbosch before it will be shipped to Russia for integration with the launch vehicle. Engineers at the launch site are preparing a special adapter ring to accommodate the Sumbandila structure on the rocket.
BACAR LAUNCH DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON As soon as the balloon supply problem has been sorted out, a launch date will be announced.
BACAR FUND
MORE ABOUT BACAR Read the BACAR story in the February Edition of EngineerIT online at www.eepublishers.co.za. JOIN SA AMSAT NOW
Members also receive a membership certificate upon joining. If you are already a member and have not received a certificate please send your details to saamsat@intekom.co.za and a certificate will be mailed to you. To join, get all the details here SA AMSAT MAILS UP TWO EMAIL NEWSLETTERS A MONTH RIGHT INTO YOUR MAILBOX. SEND AN EMAIL FOR A SAMPLE
SATELLITES FOR BEGINNERS WITH
DAVE LONG ZS5FR Download the PowerPoint Presentation here in PDF Download article in word here Download audio presentation here
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MAJOR VHF DXPEDITION Watch for updates on 20 November A
major VHF DXpedition to Namibia that will include operation on a number
of VHF bands and modes is in the final planning stages. The team will be
led by HB9CRQ, one of Europe's top EME operators and will include
moonbounce operation on 50, 144, 432 and 1296 MHz. For more details call Pine ZS6OB at 082 611 9238
The Sun’s magnetic field blamed for is fiery behaviour The Bernard Price Memorial Lecture is a joint meeting between the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers and the University of the Witwatersrand. This annual lecture is named after the late Dr Bernard Price who made a great contribution to the power supply industry in South Africa. The sun is our closest star, yet a star of which we know very little. Situated in the centre of our solar system the other planets revolve around this extremely hot, giant ball of burning gas. In his lecture entitled “Exploring our fiery star - the Sun”, Prof Solanki said that the sun is a restless star. It shows a wide variety of transients or active phenomena such as dark sunspots, the continuous changing corona, energetic flares and immense coronal mass ejections, together with the associated output of energetic radiation and particles. All these phenomena are influenced by the sun’s erratic and often turbulent magnetic field.” “The structure of the sun’s magnetic field is horribly complex and very unlike that of the earth which has a bipolar structure. Even during solar minimum the sun’s magnetic structure is complex. One could call it a mega pole structure with smaller and larger loops. For researches the smaller loops going in and out the core surface are a problem. “At this stage we cannot go down to the lower scales and that is why we are building instruments in an effort to get better resolution.” “Allmost all the phenomena observed on the sun are caused by the magnetic field,” he said. “The fact that the sun has a solar wind, the fact that it has a coronal and the fact there are flares and sunspots, is because of the magnetic field. “The sun’s influence on the earth is also, at least at human time scales, driven by the magnetic field. In the very long term there is the evolution in its core making the sun grow and getting brighter with time. This in turn is influencing the earth’s climate. There are also structure term changes which as far as we know are produced by the magnetic field These could be flares sending in energetic radiation or coronal mass ejections sending energetic or charged particles towards earth taking the magnetic field with it.” “These fields interact with the magnetic field of the earth and changes the magneto sphere causing reconnection of magnetic field lines in the magneto sphere which then send particles to the northern latitudes which produce beautiful things like auroras and less beautiful things like burning out large transformers creating power black outs and damage to spacecraft.” “In the shorter term the sun fluctuates in brightness which we believe is due to the magnetic field All the evidence we have gathered over the past 30 years shows that over the eleven year solar cycle the sun get a little brighter and less bright by about 0,1 %. It does not sound very much but we do actually see correlations in the eleven year weather cycle. Currently there are several space missions that study the sun and have already provided the scientific world with greater insight in what drives this fiery star. Mew missions are in the planning stage. The Max Planck Institute, which has existed since 1957 under the name Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy, has seen a number of transformations in its lifetime. During the 50's and 60's, the scientific emphasis was on the exploration of the Earth's upper atmosphere, but in the following decades this was extended to include new areas involving the solar system. The current thrust of research now concentrates on the exploration of the Sun, Heliosphere, planets, and comets, that is, on all the essential parts of the solar system. In order to more accurately reflect the Institute's current activities, the Institute changed the name, since 1st July 2004, to "Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research". “We want to expand to study Helios seismology, looking into the interior of the sun using its waves. The sun very conveniently provides us with 10 million different sound waves at any given time. The outer part of the sun is very turbulent. The sound waves are propagating all over the place, One can start building up a picture what is going on inside the sun, New techniques have been developed that allow us to follow individual waves and build three dimensional pictures. By peering inside the sun to determine what is going on inside the core we expect to be able to improve predictions of solar outburst and space weather in general. The
Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research has an interesting
website. BACAR launch delayed Due to a balloon supply problem the launch of BACAR has been delayed. Please visit this page regularly for updates on the new launch date. Click here for an update on
BACAR
FULL STORY ON SUMBANDILASAT AND THE AMATEUR PAYLOAD CLICK HERE |
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