AMSAT Makes Plea to Keep Greencube in Service
/AMSAT has made a plea to Sapienza Space Systems and Space Surveillance Laboratory to postpone its scheduled shutdown of the digipeater aboard the amateur satellite known as GreenCube, or IO-117. The satellite was scheduled to be decommissioned on the 5th February 2024.
Radio operators around the world have been making use of its digipeater for QSOs for more than a year, including those for the high-profile TX5S DXpedition on Clipperton Island in the Pacific Ocean. AMSAT said this marks the first activation in three decades of Clipperton Island via amateur satellite.
“opened worldwide long-distance contacts via amateur radio satellite that had not been possible since the loss of AMSAT-OSCAR 40 in 2004.”
In a 25th January 2024 letter requesting the decommissioning's postponement, AMSAT's president Robert Bankston, KE4AL, reminded S5Lab's Green Cube team that amateur satellites such as AMSAT-OSCAR 7 often enjoy extended lifetimes. The still-active OSCAR 7 was launched in 1974. AMSAT committed itself to involvement in helping manage GreenCube in cooperation with AMSAT Italia, S5Lab and other AMSAT organisations.
