Amsat P3D (Phase 3D, AO 40, Oscar 40)

Amsat P3D (AO 40, Oscar 40) [Amsat]

Amsat P3D (also known as Phase 3-D, and as Amsat Oscar 40) is an international amateur radio spacecraft (of the German organization, AMateur radio SATellites) that was launched by an Ariane-5G rocket from Kourou at 01:07 UT. The 400 kg, 250 W spacecraft is the largest amateur-support spacecraft, carrying 5 receivers (in the HF, VHF/UHF, L, S, and C bands) and seven transmitters (in the HF, K, VHF/UHF, S, and × bands). Also carried on-board are some experimental instruments such as two cosmic ray monitors named TDE, and CPE, two wide-angle cameras in the SCOPE unit available for the amateurs to command their images from locations of interest, a passive ionospheric "sounder" to scan the 0.5 to 30.0 MHz band so as to derive the electron densities in the upper part of the ionosphere, and a GPS-receiver to locate the spacecraft position.