China to Launch CAMSAT CAS-6 Satellite on December 20

12/19/2019

The CAMSAT CAS-6 amateur radio payload is set for launch on Friday, December 20, at 0321 UTC from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, piggybacked on a TIANQIN-1 technology test satellite, using a CZ-4B launch vehicle. The primary launch payload is the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite CBERS-4A.

The microsatellite, to be known as CAS-6/TIANQIN-1, will be placed into a sun-synchronous orbit at an apogee of 390 miles. It will operate on VHF and UHF using the call sign BJ1SO. The telemetry beacon is on 145.910 MHz, while telemetry (4k9 baud GMSK) will be transmitted on 145.890 MHz. CAS-6 will carry a U/V linear transponder, with a downlink of 145.925, 20 kHz passband (inverted), and an uplink of 435.28 MHz. CAMSAT has provided CAS-6 Satellite Digital Telemetry Description and CW Telemetry Beacon Encoding Format documents. — Thanks to Alan Kung, BA1DU