Over the weekend ZACUBE-1 (TshepisoSat) had close approach with another space object. In this case it was a piece of Fengyun 1C debris. The debris was created by a Chinese anti-satellite missile test that was conducted on … Continued
We were invited to give a mission update at the SA AMSAT‘s Space Symposium on Saturday (24 May 2014) at the Innovation Hub in Pretoria. The event was well attended and even had representatives from SANSA in … Continued
The two pictures below seemed nice enough to write a post about, so here goes. Although pictures of the sun are nice, the earth makes a much better subject. So far we have only been lucky enough … Continued
Week nine of the year will go down as quite an eventful week for ZACUBE-1 (TshepisoSat), literally dodging two bullets involving speeds in the kilometres per second range. The first close approach notification arrived the morning of … Continued
Since the last image was taken by ZACUBE-1 we have managed to squeeze in time to capture three more. Unfortunately none of these are quite as spectacular as the previous one. In the first photograph the … Continued
ZACUBE-1 (TshepisoSat) update – OBC time and beacon decoder
An updated version of the beacon decoder application is available. Two graphs have been added to give a visual representation of what the on-board computer (OBC) temperature and battery bus voltage are doing over the pass. … Continued
South Africa on a clear day, as seen by TshepisoSat!
What better way to celebrate nearly two months on orbit than with the first image captured by TshepisoSat that shows the earth from space. What makes the image even more special is that, as mentioned before, the … Continued
ZACUBE-1 (TshepisoSat) Two-line element set Update
Early this morning Celestrak’s two-line element (TLE) file for CubeSats was updated to include our satellite name, with the reference to the launch object number being removed. Up to now the TLE set used to track ZACUBE-1 … Continued
First image captured by ZACUBE-1 (TshepisoSat) from space
Earlier this week a quick checkout of the payload board was done. The sub-system board was powered on and a few telemetry values were requested with all response values indicating good health. The board was successfully switched … Continued