AO-91 Commissioned, Declared Open for Amateur Use!

AMSAT-NA’s latest Amateur Radio CubeSat, RadFxSat (Fox-1B), now known as AO-91, has been opened for general use. AMSAT Engineering officially announced that AO-91 was ready for use at 0650 UTC on Thanksgiving Day, November 23. AMSAT VP of Engineering, Jerry Buxton, N0JY, turned over operation to Mark Hammond, N8MH, and AMSAT Operations during a contact on the AO-91 repeater during the pass over the Eastern US, AMSAT said in a bulletin.

The latest CubeSat in the Fox series was launched on November 18 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Telemetry is downlinked via the DUV sub-audible telemetry stream, which can be decoded using FoxTelemsoftware. A 1U CubeSat, RadFxSat (Fox-1B) is a joint mission of AMSAT and the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics (ISDE) at Vanderbilt University. AMSAT constructed the rest of the satellite, including the spaceframe, on-board computer, and power system.

The Amateur Radio package is similar to that on AO-85, with an uplink on 435.250 MHz (67.0 Hz CTCSS) and a downlink on 145.960 MHz. — Thanks to AMSAT News Service