Soyuz

To celebrate the upcoming Fly Your Satellite! launch into low Earth orbit, ESA’s Education office challenges to listen out for the tiny satellites.

UPDATE: On the night of 24 April

Arianespace has halted the

launch countdown for Soyuz Flight VS14 due to an anomaly that occurred during the final chronology.

A new launch date will be announced after the results of an initial analysis. A

t the time of writing the page ESA challenge page

still says 24nd.

Fly Your Satellites will transmit in ham radio bands

AAUSAT4 Downlink frequency 437.425 MHz

E-st@r-II Downlink frequency 437.485 MHz

OUFTI-1 Downlink frequency 145.980 MHz

It’s pretty amazing that a $15 dongle which is ordinarily limited to about 30-40 miles, depending on your terrain, can hear a clear signal coming from a tiny satellite in space orbiting over a hundred miles overhead. Many of the satellites aren’t much bigger than a milk bottle.