OSCAR Totally Explained

Everything about Oscar totally explained

OSCAR is an acronym for Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio. OSCAR series satellites use amateur radio frequencies to communicate with earth. They are conceived, designed, and built by amateur radio operators under the general direction of national organisations such as AMSAT.

The beginning

The first amateur satellite simply named OSCAR-1, was launched on December 12, 1961, barely four years after the launch of Russia's first satellite, Sputnik. OSCAR-1 was the very first satellite to be ejected as a secondary payload and subsequently enter a separate orbit. Despite being in orbit only 22 days OSCAR-1 was an immediate success with over 570 amateur radio operators in 28 countries forwarding observations to Project OSCAR. Throughout the years OSCAR satellites have helped make significant breakthroughs in the science of satellite communications. A few advancements include the launch of the very first satellite voice transponders and the development of highly advanced digital "store-and-forward" messaging transponder techniques. To-date over 70 OSCAR's have been launched with more to be launched in the near future.

OSCAR Satellite Communications

Currently OSCAR satellites support many different types of operation including FM voice, SSB voice, as well as digital communications of AX.25 FSK (Packet radio) and PSK-31.

Mode Designators

ť Historically OSCAR uplink (transmit to) and downlink (receive from) frequencies were designated using single letter codes.

:*Mode A 10 meters/2 meters ť :*Mode B 2 meters/70 centimeters

:*Mode J 70 centimeters/2 meters ť New uplink and downlink designations use sets of paired letters following the structure X/Y where X is the uplink band and Y is the downlink band.

ť : List current as of 2006-10-14

Multinational effort

Currently 21 countries have launched an OSCAR satellite. These countries, in chronological order by date of launch, include: The United States of America, Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, France, Portugal, Korea, Italy, Mexico, Israel, Thailand, South Africa, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, & Colombia.

Satellites in development

BLUEsat - A microsatellite built by the students of The University of New South Wales. Unknown launch date.

Prism - A nanosatellite built by the University of Tokyo. Unknown launch date.

ZSAT - A microsatellite initiated and funded by the U.S. Department of Science and Technology. Unknown launch date.

ALMASat - A microsatellite built by the University of Bologna in Forlì. Unknown launch date.

AMSAT-Phase 3E - A satellite built by AMSAT. Scheduled to launch on March 12 2007

KiwiSAT - A microsatellite built by AMSAT-ZL. Scheduled to launch on June 15 2008

ESEO - A microsatellite built by SSETI. Scheduled to launch October 30 2008.

AMSAT-Eagle - A satellite built by AMSAT. Scheduled to launch March 1 2009.

Trivia

SuitSat, an obsolete Russian space suit with a transmitter aboard, is officially known as OSCAR 54. In a twist of fate, "Oscar" was the name given to an obsolete space suit by its young owner in the book "Have Space Suit, Will Travel," by Robert A Heinlein. This book was originally published a year after the launch of the first artificial satellite (Sputnik).

Further Information

Get more info on 'Oscar'.

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