Thursday, June 08, 2006

SuitSat - new satellite

Using a simple police scanner or ham radio, you can listen to a disembodied spacesuit circling Earth.
One of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age was in orbit! The spacesuit is the satellite -- "SuitSat" for short.
SuitSat is a Russian brainstorm. Old spacesuits can be turned into useful satellites. SuitSat is a first test of that idea.

Photo: ISS astronaut Mike Finke spacewalks in a Russian Orlan spacesuit in 2004. SuitSat will have no one inside.

Spacesuit was equipped with three batteries, a radio transmitter and internal sensors to measure temperature and battery power. As SuitSat circled Earth, it transmited its condition to the ground.
SuitSat could be heard by anyone on the ground. All you need is an antenna and a radio receiver that you can tune to 145.990 MHz FM. A police band scanner or a hand-talkie ham radio would work just fine. Students, scouts, teachers and ham radio operators were able to tune in.
Using Science@NASA’s J-PASS utility you could find out when will SuitSat orbit over your city. All you need to enter is you zip code.

Photo: Tune your FM radio to 145.990 MHz.

When you point antena you could hear:
SuitSat transmits for 30 seconds, pauses for 30 seconds, and then repeats. "This is SuitSat-1, RS0RS”
Suitsat 'talked' using a voice synthesizer. It's pretty amazing.

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