The UoSAT-2 satellite
twenty thirty forty years in space

Fast forward.

21 January 2004. While reviewing tapes of the September 2003 disaster monitoring constellation launch for our own space video, we rediscovered an old launch video. So, in time for the twentieth anniversary of that earlier launch on 1 March 2004 with Landsat 5, and knowing that it's still operational after twenty years in space, we present...

Rewind. Cue. Roll the tape...

On March 1, 1984, the UoSAT-2 Spacecraft was launched.

UoSAT-2 launch video
(9.64Mb Windows Media file, running time 4:23, right-click to Save Link as file.
Also available as 63.7MB MPEG file and 26.1MB MP4 file.)

CONCEIVED and EDITED by:
HAROLD PRICE, NK6K

CAMERA:
HAROLD PRICE, NK6K

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT:
LEE HALLIN, WB7SND

2nd Unit Camera:
Ian Ferebee, G6BTU
Neville Bean, G8NOB
Colin Smithers, G4CWH
Hugh Pett, VE3FLL

I made this video, way back when. Very tediously, as I recall, the jvc editing system I was using (rented at $20/hr, I think) wasn't meant for music videos. The music is skewed from the images a bit on this mpeg version of a 3rd generation copy, so you don't get the crisp cuts that the original had, but the quality is quite good, considering. Anyway, the back story of the video was that UoSAT-2 was "lost" shortly after launch - the transmitter was off and it we couldn't make contact, making the words of the song relevant to those of us who had worked 24 hours a day to get it ready. I worked on the UoSat-2 DCE (digital communications experiment) one of the first non-military store and forward communications systems. After about 10 weeks, communications was established through sheer tenaciousness by the command crew (Neville Bean). A three instruction program was written in the DCE to bypass a failed command data path, and UoSAT-2 has been in business ever since. The whole thing made for great stories, damaging a big radio telescope trying to track fast enough to hear the local oscillator on the receiver (it did), talking the British truck driver into letting me drive the spacecraft from LAX to Vandenberg because he kept trying to shift the rented truck with the break instead of the clutch (I had to let him drive my new Firebird), etc. There is an in-joke every 10 seconds, though I haven't written them down in 20 years. Maybe next anniversary. To answer the usual question, the main processor is an 1802, the DCE has an NEC800 Z80/like processor. No Unix. - Harold
-- Harold Price, 2 March 2004.

Produced for: VITA and AMSAT

Music: Peter Schilling, Major Tom (coming home)

40th anniversary, LinkedIn post, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, 2 March 2024.
UoSAT-2 clocks up an outstanding 30 years of in-orbit operations, SSTL press release, 5 March 2014.
OSCAR-11 / UOSAT-2 Celebrates 30 Years in Orbit, AMSAT-UK, 5 March 2014.

Last heard, 14 March 2008, heard again, December 2009 and April 2010.
UoSAT-2 transmitting for 26 years, Robin Wolstenholme, SSTL Blog, 1 March 2010.

Last-minute satellite turns 20, Wired News.
Satellite celebrates 20 years working in orbit, Slashdot.
UO-11 Satellite to Mark 20 Years in Space, ARRL.
OSCAR UO-11 20th Birthday Listeners Report Page, AMSAT-UK.

Twelfth anniversary.
Eleventh anniversary.
Tenth anniversary.