DIY Comms and Control for Amateur Space

Book description

Radio spectrum for commanding and recording from our satellites is a shared resource with subtle hurdles. We walk the path originally paved by AMSATs to discuss the steps and licensing needed to set up and operate both a command uplink and a data download station and network. Find out how playing nicely with others maximizes your ability to get your data down.

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Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. Conventions Used in This Book
    2. Safari® Books Online
    3. How to Contact Us
  2. 1. Overview
    1. Talking to Machines
    2. Parts of a Comm System
    3. Comm for the Impatient
      1. Two Walkie-Talkies
      2. Flatsat
      3. Bidirectional Bench Test Hardware
    4. Power, Range, and Licensing
      1. Higher Power Licensing
      2. Establishing a Ground Network
      3. Breaking International Law
    5. Housekeeping Data
      1. Housekeeping: Bus and Instrument Are Separate
    6. Alerts and Pages
      1. Limits Displays: Green, Yellow, Red
      2. Data Integrity
    7. Requirements Checklist
      1. Performance Requirements
      2. Security & Anti-Jamming
      3. Spacecraft Orbits
      4. Frequency Allocation
      5. Physical Constraints
      6. Architecture Choices
    8. Comparing a Space-Based Network to a Ground-Based Network
      1. NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS)
      2. NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN)
      3. Near Earth Network
  3. 2. Radio
    1. Transceiver Concepts
      1. Wavelength and Frequency
      2. Dual Band and Modulation
    2. Doppler
      1. Interference
    3. ADC
      1. Packets
      2. APRS
    4. Software-Defined Radio
  4. 3. Full Ground Station
    1. Downlink Only
    2. Operations Choices
    3. Start with the Mission Payload
      1. Comm Quantities
      2. Ground Network
      3. Ranging and Orbit Determination
      4. Ground System Design Products
    4. Mission Phases
  5. 4. Licensing
    1. Overview
      1. Extended Case: Private Comm Sat
      2. Future Ideas
    2. Regulatory Solutions
      1. IARU
      2. Smartphones
      3. High-Altitude Ballooning and Guerrilla Radio
    3. Demystifying the Basic Technology
      1. Regulatory and Permissions
      2. Ham Technician’s License
    4. Scenarios
      1. Safehold
      2. Ground Sim
    5. Software
      1. Compare and contrast
    6. Relays
      1. Line of Sight/Direct to Ground
      2. Relays
      3. Private Networks
  6. 5. Orbits
    1. Defining Orbits
      1. The Six Classic Orbital Elements
      2. TLEs
      3. Orbit Determination
    2. Time
      1. Satellite Time
    3. Ground Tracks
      1. Contact Passes
  7. 6. Comm Budgets
    1. Allocations
      1. Data Priorities
      2. Extended Example of Command via Text Messaging
      3. More Realistic Bandwidth Allocation
      4. Encoding
    2. Link Budget
      1. Units
      2. Link Budget Equation
      3. Going Deeper
    3. Data Budget
  8. 7. Antenna Design
    1. Antenna Shape
      1. Common Spacecraft Antenna
      2. Common Ground Station Antenna
      3. Antenna Size and Frequency
      4. Impedance and SWR
      5. Antenna Materials
    2. Power, ERP, and EIRP
  9. 8. Performance Characteristics
    1. Data, Error Rates, and Availability
    2. Security
      1. Historical Satellite Hacking
  10. 9. Concept of Operations
    1. ConOps
    2. High-Level ConOps Design
      1. Ops Center Network
    3. Trending
    4. Science Operations Center (SOC)
      1. Science Monitoring
    5. Handling Anomalies
  11. A. Resources
  12. Afterword

Product information

  • Title: DIY Comms and Control for Amateur Space
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: June 2015
  • Publisher(s): Make: Community
  • ISBN: 9781449310660