The Petite Amateur Navy Satellite (PANSAT) is a small satellite designed and built by officer students, faculty, and staff at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The main objective is to support the Space Systems Engineering and Space Systems Operations Curricula by providing a “hands-on” hardware project where exposure to the many facets of a space system development and life cycle can be experienced. The spacecraft itself provides digital, spread spectrum communications using the amateur radio 70 cm band. PANSAT further provides educational training while in orbit through a space-based laboratory for officer students at NPS.

The amateur user will be able to work PANSAT’s bulletin board system in a 9842 bps, simplex, direct sequence spread spectrum mode. Unlike some other amateur radio satellites, PANSAT does not have a beacon mode, and it does not have a 2 meter channel. This makes the system rather complex in that the same 436.5 MHz frequency is used for both the uplink and downlink.

Through use by the amateur radio community PANSAT will supply a means to demonstrate spread-spectrum communications. In addition, PANSAT provides many potential applications for low-cost communications. The low probability-of-intercept would be an important feature for the military in downed-pilot-rescues. The pilot could obtain his/her location through a GPS system and uplink the information to the orbiting satellite at low risk. Examples of civilian uses include emergency rescue and communication to remote areas.

Orbital Parameter

Name  PO-34
NORAD # 25520
COSPAR Bezeichnung  1998-064-B  
Inklination (Grad)  28.456
RAAN  122.695
Excentrizität 0.0005586
ARGP  172.516
Umläufe pro Tag 15.16351514
Periode 1h 34m 57s (94.95 Min)
Semi-major axis 6895 km
Perigäum x Apogäum  513 x 521 km
Bstar (drag Faktor) 0.000049892 1/ER
Mean Anomaly  187.551

Downlink

436,5 MHz

Status

nicht aktiv

PANSAT Homepage und weitere Informationen

http://www.sp.nps.navy.mil/pansat/