Jump to content

AMSAT

From HamWiki
AMSAT
Full nameRadio Amateur Satellite Corporation
Also known asAMSAT-NA (AMSAT North America)
Founded1969, in Washington, D.C.
TypeVolunteer-run nonprofit educational corporation
Activities
PublicationThe AMSAT Journal
Satellite programsFox, Fox-Plus and GOLF
Other rolesAssigns OSCAR numbers; supports ARISS
Annual eventAMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting
Contact
Websiteamsat.org

AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, is the US organization that designs, builds and operates amateur radio satellites and supports the hams who use them. It was formed in Washington, D.C., in 1969 as a nonprofit educational corporation, continuing the work of Project OSCAR, the West Coast group that had put the first amateur satellite into orbit in 1961.[1] Its spacecraft and ground software are almost entirely the work of volunteers and donated resources.[1] Because similar groups use the AMSAT name in many other countries, the US organization is often called AMSAT-NA, for North America.

History

Project OSCAR's first satellite, OSCAR 1, was launched in December 1961, about four years after Sputnik.[1] AMSAT took up that work in 1969, and over the following decades it and its partners built a series of satellites of growing ambition. AO-7, launched in 1974, carried a transponder built by the German group AMSAT-DL;[2] it fell silent for many years and still works today when its solar panels are in sunlight.

The most ambitious projects were the Phase 3 satellites, built with AMSAT-DL for high, elliptical orbits that let them be used for hours at a time across whole continents: AO-10 (1983), AO-13 (1988) and AO-40 (2000).[2][3] All are now silent. Recovering that kind of high-orbit capability is the long-term goal behind AMSAT's current work.

OSCAR numbers

AMSAT assigns OSCAR numbers (Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) to amateur satellites worldwide. A number is not given at launch. The satellite's builders must request one in writing after the spacecraft has reached orbit and at least one transmitter is working in the amateur satellite service, and its frequencies must have been coordinated before launch through the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).[4] AMSAT's OSCAR Number Administrator then assigns the next number in sequence.

The full name usually starts with a word chosen by the builder, shortened to initials in everyday use: AO-7 is AMSAT-OSCAR 7, and FO-29 is Fuji-OSCAR 29 from Japan. When several satellites share a rocket, the one deployed first normally gets the lower number.[4] A satellite does not need an OSCAR number to be used legitimately by hams.[4]

Current programs

The Fox program produced a series of small CubeSats, each about 10 centimeters on a side, with FM repeaters usable by any ham with a dual-band radio and a simple antenna. AO-85 (Fox-1A) was launched in October 2015,[5] AO-91 in November 2017,[6] AO-92 in January 2018 and AO-95 in December 2018.[7][8] AO-95's receiver failed soon after launch, so it was never commissioned as a repeater, and AO-92 reentered the atmosphere in early 2024.[9] The FoxTelem program, available free for Windows, Mac and Linux, lets anyone decode the satellites' telemetry and send it to AMSAT.

Fox-Plus is a follow-on fleet of small CubeSats. As of 2026 AMSAT planned for the first two to carry a linear transponder for SSB and CW (Morse) contacts, with later ones carrying a digital store-and-forward payload, and planned to fly them on commercial launches.[10]

GOLF, for "Greater Orbit, Larger Footprint," is the step toward higher orbits. Its first spacecraft, GOLF-TEE (Technology Exploration Environment), is a larger, 3U CubeSat meant to prove systems AMSAT has not flown before: active pointing control, deployable solar panels, radiation-tolerant computers and a software-defined transponder with a 10 GHz downlink.[10] In July 2025 NASA informed AMSAT that it would not provide launches for GOLF-TEE or its successor GOLF-1 through its CubeSat Launch Initiative, and in August 2025 AMSAT's board voted unanimously to finish GOLF-TEE regardless;[11] as of 2026 no launch had been announced. Launch plans change often, so AMSAT's news service is the place to check current status.

AMSAT and the ARRL were also among the organizations that helped form ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) in 1996.[12] ARISS arranges school contacts with astronauts and runs the amateur stations aboard the station. Since 2020 the US side of ARISS has been an independent nonprofit, ARISS-USA, which continues to work with AMSAT.[12]

Membership is not required to use the satellites, but AMSAT's free online pass predictor and its satellite status page are the quickest way to find out which satellites are working and when they will be overhead.

AMSAT organizations in other countries

The AMSAT name is shared by independent national groups that cooperate on satellites and frequency coordination.

  • AMSAT-DL (Germany) was founded in Marburg in 1973 and is now based at the Bochum Observatory.[2] Under Karl Meinzer it led the Phase 3 satellites, and it was largely responsible for the concept and specifications of the amateur transponders on QO-100, the first geostationary amateur satellite, launched in 2018 aboard Qatar's Es'hail-2.[2]
  • AMSAT-UK was formed in 1975, growing out of a newsletter started after AO-6 was launched in 1972. It publishes OSCAR News, is affiliated with the Radio Society of Great Britain,[13] and developed the educational FUNcube-1 satellite (AO-73), launched in 2013, with AMSAT-NL.[14]
  • Others include JAMSAT (Japan), AMSAT-IN (India), AMSAT Italia and AMSAT-NL (Netherlands).

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 About AMSAT, AMSAT.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Who are we?, AMSAT-DL.
  3. ↑ AMSAT P3A, P3B, P3C, Gunter's Space Page.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 OSCAR Numbers Policy, AMSAT.
  5. ↑ AO-85 (Fox-1A), AMSAT.
  6. ↑ AO-91 Commissioned, Declared Open for Amateur Use, ARRL, November 2017.
  7. ↑ Fox-1D (AO-92) Now Commissioned, Open for Amateur Use, ARRL, January 2018.
  8. ↑ AMSAT's Fox-1Cliff Amateur Radio CubeSat Launched Successfully, ARRL, December 2018.
  9. ↑ ANS-035 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins for February 4, 2024, AMSAT.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 AMSAT Project Status, AMSAT, August 2026.
  11. ↑ ANS-222 AMSAT News Service Bulletins, AMSAT, August 2025.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 ARISS Establishes Itself as an Independent Organization, ARRL, June 2020.
  13. ↑ About, AMSAT-UK.
  14. ↑ AO-73 (FUNcube-1), AMSAT.
Retrieved from "https://hamwiki.org/index.php?title=AMSAT&oldid=3000"