Australis-OSCAR 5 (a.k.a. AO-5) is an amateur radio satellite that was launched into

Low Earth Orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

on 23 January 1970 by a Thor Delta launcher from

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg S ...

, Lompoc, California. AO-5 was launched piggyback with TIROS-M (ITOS-1)

weather satellite A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites are mainly of two types: polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asyn ...

Spacecraft

Built by students at The

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Battery powered, Australis-OSCAR 5 transmitted

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', 'far off', an ...

on both 2 meter (144.050 MHz at 50 mW) and 10 meter (29.450 MHz at 250 mW) bands that operated for 23 and 46 days respectively. Passive magnetic

attitude Attitude or Attitude may refer to: Philosophy and psychology * Attitude (psychology), a disposition or state of mind ** Attitude change * Propositional attitude, a mental state held towards a proposition Science and technology * Orientation ...

stabilization was performed by carrying two bar

magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, ...

s to align with the Earth's

magnetic field A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...

in order to provide a favorable antenna footprint. The University of Melbourne compiled tracking reports from hundreds of stations in 27 countries.

Firsts

* First amateur satellite to be remotely controlled. * First amateur satellite launch coordinated by new

AMSAT AMSAT is a name for various amateur radio satellite organizations worldwide. In particular, it often refers to the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, headquartered in Washington, D.C. AMSAT organizations design, build, arrange launches for, a ...

organization. * Switch to Arabic numbering for this and future OSCAR satellites, from earlier Roman numeral usage (I, II, III, IV) by Project Oscar.

Notes

* David Bellair and Stephen Howard, "Australis Oscar - Its Design, Construction and Operation," QST, July 1969, pp 58–61 * David Bellair and Stephen Howard, "Obtaining Data from Australis-Oscar 5," QST, August 1969, pp 70, 72, 82 * Jan King, "Proposed Experiments with Australis-Oscar 5," QST, December 1969, pp 54–55 * "Strays", QST, March 1970, p. 86 (a bibliography on AO-5) * William Dunkerley Jr., "Australis Oscar 5: The Launch Story," QST, April 1970, p. 61 * Ray Soifer, "Australis-Oscar 5 Ionospheric Propagation Results", QST, October 1970, pp 54–57 * Jan King, "Australis-Oscar 5 Spacecraft Performance", QST, December 1970, pp 64–69

References

{{OSCAR satellites Satellites of Australia 1970 establishments in Australia Amateur radio satellites Spacecraft launched in 1970