Fram2, First Human Polar Spacecraft Travel by LB9NJ/KD3AID and Team in Progress

Fram2 spacecraft has been launched into orbit and has four astronauts. LB9NJ/KD3AID is among them and talked to university students of TU Berlin today from orbit. The event was covered live on YouTube and later they posted as a separate video. Though the initial video was live, I could not hear LB9NJ/KD3AID. Only the ground station part of the conversation was there. The second video has a clear clip of LB9NJ/KD3AID speaking to the ground station, answering their questions for the scheduled contact. ARISS Operations UK Team is livestreaming the Orbital predictions for the Fram2 Mission on their YouTube channel. Students of TU Berlin had asked three questions and received answers for two of their questions during the short period with good signals from the Dragon capsule. That was a historic event and the contact was on 437.550 MHz.

In addition to the scheduled voice contacts, SSTV transmissions are planned in which LB9NJ/KD3AID will transmit images using an ICOM IC-705. There is Fram2Ham competition in which teams of school and college students will try to receive these SSTV images. Altitude of Fram2 is around 420 km and Doppler correction is needed for receiving the SSTV images on UHF. Spacecraft will cover both North Pole and South Pole in its orbit and get views which are not accessible from International Space Station. Participants of the youth SSTV competition will have to acquire several SSTV “Puzzle Pieces”, assemble the puzzle, determine the polar location and answer questions related to that location. That is a really tough job as the transmissions are only at 5W compared to the usual 25W SSTV transmissions from International Space Station. Short duration of the trip planned to last only 3-5 days is another challenge. Moreover, due to changes in orientation of the antenna, some images may get beamed either to the left or right of the spacecraft path. It may also get beamed to space instead of to Earth, due to the same reason.