TechEdSat is a 1U CubeSat built at TechShop by San Jose State University graduate students in partnership with Ames Research Center and AAC Microtec. Its mission is to evaluate Space Plug-and-play Avionics (SPA) designed in Sweden by AAC Microtec, and to perform a communications experiment utilizing the Iridium and Orbcomm satellite phone network.
TechEdSat was launched from Pad 2 of the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at Tanegashima on 21 July 2012, aboard Kounotori 3 atop an H-IIB carrier rocket. Kounotori 3 carried the satellite, along with the Raiko, We Wish, Niwaka and F-1 spacecraft, to the International Space Station, from where they were deployed via the JAXA J-SSOD deployer, from the Kibo module.
TechEdSat was successfully deployed from the ISS on 4 Oct 2012 at 15:44:15.297 UTC. TechEdSat transmits a heartbeat packet over amateur radio every 4 seconds. These packets are 122 ASCII character AX.25 packets. The amateur band radio frequency is 437.465 MHz.
Facts in Brief
Launch Date: 2012-07-21
Launch Vehicle: H-IIB
Launch Site: Tanegashima Space Center, Japan