As has been already reported, SSETI Express XO-53 and eight other payloads successfully lifted off from Plesetsk in Northern Russia at 06:26 UTC on October 27th.

The satellite was designed to wait for some time after separation from the launch adaptor before activating any electrical circuits and exactly at the appointed moment, 08:33 UTC, UHF signals were heard at the ground station at Aalborg in Denmark, by a number of other amateurs in Europe and also by the launch team in Plesetsk (with a THF7 and a handheld Arrow antenna!)

On the first pass good telemetry was received and simple commanding from the ground was successfully tested. Just a few minutes later we even had an email from NORAD with some preliminary Two Line Elements which indicated that satellites had reached the correct orbit.

Subsequent orbits produced equally good signals but also showed that the battery volts were decreasing rapidly – it seemed that no charge was reaching them from the solar array.

Sadly it appears that, although the satellite was commanded to reduce power consumption to the minimum, the battery was finally depleted around midnight and no further signals have been heard from it since.

A Failure Analysis Team was immediately assembled at Aalborg as that was where most of the Express team members had already gathered. Their initial report has been prepared but not yet finalised. It seems likely that a MOSFET device in the battery charge regulator system has failed and it is this that may be preventing the proper charging of the battery. It has also been determined that there is a finite possibility that the fault may “self heal” and that XO-53 could therefore recommence operations at some time in the future.

The full report is expected to be available shortly and will be published as soon as possible.

It was not possible to activate the S-Band transmitter before the battery became depleted so we may never know how it survived the launch. In many ways however the mission has already been a success for SSETI itself as it demonstrated that it is possible for a group of university students to design and assemble a full size satellite in a short time and place it into space.

It has also been the opportunity for the radio amateur world to demonstrate their ability and willingness to create a worldwide network of groundstations – this is something that cost the professionals millions of pounds or dollars or euros each year. This demonstration will stand us in very good stead for the possibilities of being involved in future similar missions.

It has also shown that radio amateurs and students can share their passions and skills to great effect in the space world!

I would like to pay a tribute to my colleagues in the AMSAT-UK Express team of Sam Jewell G4DDK, David Bowman G0MRF, Howard Long G6LVB and Jason Flynn G7OCD. Their contributions not only to the S-Band unit but also to many other facets of the satellite were respected as invaluable.

Also to Charlie Suckling G3WDG who provided another 3 watt S Band PA (his first one continues to provide beautiful downlink signals on AO-51), to Richard Limebear G3RWL who put together the Express Handbook, to the Polish team at the University of Wroclaw for providing the S- Band antennas, the power splitter and beautiful enclosure, to Ib Chistofferesen OZ1MY and his AMSAT-OZ team for their tremendous support to the Danish students at the Ground Station and to Jean-Louis Rault F6AGR from AMSAT-F who arranged the proper ITU registration and notification for the satellite in the Amateur Satellite Service.

In the event, the success of our working arrangements with the other Express teams was down to the great skills of the Project manager - Neil Melville. Neil spent literally thousands of hours on the project working directly with a variety of teams around Europe to ensure that the satellite was ready for the launch. In the process all the groups have learnt a tremendous amount about building satellites and working as a team. Many valuable lessons have been learnt and documented.

Although this project was not expensive in monetary terms for AMSAT-UK, (the costs of components charged to our funds were less than £1500) the level of support it has received from hundreds of amateurs around the world has been immense and this visible support has been impressing the other Express teams for many months.

It appears that well over 1000 amateurs downloaded the SERACC client software, a similar number the Express Handbook which was made available in three languages, and over 500 downloaded the Integration and Launch campaign logbooks.

Hopefully further opportunities for cooperation between radio amateurs and similar projects will be developed in the future – I believe that the SSETI Express mission has laid down great foundations for this to occur.

Graham Shirville G3VZV