At the request of the Chinese Amateur Satellite Group (CAMSAT), AMSAT Vice President of Operations Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, has announced the designation of the new Chinese XW-3 (CAS-9) satellite as Hope-OSCAR-113 (HO-113). Developed by CAMSAT, in cooperation with the Chinese government’s aerospace and education departments, XW-3 was launched on December 26 at 0311 UTC on a CZ-4C Y39 vehicle from China’s Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. CAMSAT completed the design and manufacture of the amateur radio payload and manages the satellite’s in-orbit operation. Alan Kung, BA1DU, of CAMSAT announced the successful launch, and reports of telemetry and contacts soon followed. XW-3 has a linear transponder and a camera that can take photos of Earth.

The CW beacon frequency is 435.575 MHz at 22 WPM. GMSK telemetry is at 435.725 MHz. The amateur radio inverting V/U 100 mW linear transponder uplink is 145.870 MHz, and the downlink is 435.180 MHz. The transponder passband is 30 kHz.

Kung said, “A space camera carried on the satellite has undergone preliminary engineering tests, and the download function of compressed photos will be opened to amateur radio enthusiasts in the future.”

On January 3, CAMSAT announced the release of the XW-3 (CAS-9) Amateur Radio Satellite User’s Manual, version 1.1 2022-1-3. The latest version adds information on the satellite’s test mode telemetry data format. The satellite’s test mode is used for in-orbit engineering monitoring, diagnosis, and maintenance and is only used when the satellite passes over China. — Thanks to AMSAT News Service and Alan Kung, BA1DU