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Amateur Operations

Phoenix pictured during deployment from the ISS. High resolution photos were captured by astronauts on board the ISS (credit: Nanoracks (top image) NASA (bottom images))  

Phoenix deployed from the ISS on February 19, 2020 at 9:35 UTC (2:35am MST). Due to an in-orbit anomaly, Phoenix’s health beacon is no longer active, and ASU has ceased operations with the spacecraft. As of August 2020, Phoenix was still operational and capable of two-way communication, but difficult to contact. If you are interested in communicating with Phoenix, please refer to the information provided below; however, note that attempts to contact the spacecraft may be unsuccessful.

If attempting to ping the spacecraft, success may be achieved if packets are sent frequently (~2 seconds apart) when the spacecraft is close to max elevation. If Phoenix receives a ping command, it will reply immediately. As such, if you are trying to validate your ground station, it may be more beneficial to reference the SatNOGS Database for currently active CubeSats, many of which have health beacons of their own that you can practice decoding. For any questions, please contact phoenix.cubesat@gmail.com

Following deployment, Phoenix's TLE was confirmed as NORAD ID: 45258, or international designator 1998-067RB, with the help of the SatNOGS database. Observations of Phoenix from its early days in orbit can be found on SatNOGS under ID #45258 - Phoenix (ASU) 

 

Phoenix Transceiver Characteristics 

Hardware Model: GomSpace AX-100 

Operating Frequency: 437.35 MHz

Baud rate: 9600 bps

Beacon Interval: 30 seconds

Bandwidth: 20 kHz

Modulation Type: GMSK (Mod Index: 0.5)

Mode: Narrow-FM

Protocol: AX-25 KISS packets with HDLC encapsulation

Encoding: NRZI G3RUH/K9NG scrambled

Spacecraft Callsign: WJ2XOY