UoSAT-1

UoSAT-1, also known as UoSAT-OSCAR 9 (UO-9), was a British amateur radio satellite which orbited Earth. It was built at the University of Surrey and launched into low Earth orbit on 6 October 1981. It exceeded its anticipated two-year orbital lifespan^[1] by six years, having received signals on 13 October 1989,^[2] before re-entering the atmosphere.

UoSAT-1

Mission type	OSCAR
Operator	University of Surrey
COSPAR ID	1981-100B
SATCAT no.	12888
Spacecraft properties
Launch mass	54 kilograms (119 lb)
Start of mission
Launch date	6 October 1981, 11:27 (1981-10-06UTC11:27Z) UTC
Rocket	Delta 2310 D-157
Launch site	Vandenberg SLC-2W
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth
Perigee altitude	372 kilometres (231 mi)
Apogee altitude	374 kilometres (232 mi)
Inclination	97.6°
Period	92 minutes
OSCAR ← OSCAR 8 OSCAR 10 →

This was the first of several UoSAT satellites; followed by UoSAT-2.

Mission

Like its successor UoSAT-2 it carried a CCD camera and a Digitalker speech synthesiser,^[1] and transmitted telemetry data on a 145.826 MHz beacon at 1200 baud using asynchronous AFSK.^[3]

The Astrid package sold by British firm MM Microwave,^[4] consisting of a fixed frequency VHF receiver set and software for the BBC Micro, could display the telemetry frames from either UoSAT-1 or UoSAT-2.^[1] UoSAT-1's solar arrays were of an experimental design reused for UoSAT-2.^[1]

Computers and Data Processing

The primary computer for the satellite was the RCA 1802 microprocessor.^[5] A secondary microprocessor was also employed, the "F100L" (a Ferranti 16-bit processor). Memory was 16K of DRAM.