China’s Harbin Institute of Technology has applied for IARU Coordination of the ASRTU-1 CubeSat. Among other capabilities, the satellite will provide a V/u FM amateur radio transponder. ASRTU-1 is a 12U CubeSat mission designed by Russian and Chinese university students for education and amateur radio.

Harbin Institute of Technology has successfully developed several amateur radio satellites, including LilacSat-2 (CAS-3H), LilacSat-1 (LO-90), DSLWP-A (LO-93), and DSLWP-B (LO-94). A new SDR-based transceiver was developed for ASRTU-1 to provide communication and experiment resources to radio amateurs, including a V/u FM transponder, a UHF telemetry downlink, and a 10.5 GHz image downlink. The satellite will also allow radio amateurs to send commands to control the satellite to take and download images.

ASRTU is planned for a launch from Russia in the fourth quarter of 2022. — Thanks to the IARU