According to the LuxSpace website, the 4M-LXS spacecraft is in the vicinity of the moon.  The spacecraft will be flying away from Earth until about 1200-2200 UTC (7:00 AM – 5:00 PM USA Central Time) on October 27, and will be flying toward the earth starting at about 0100-1000 UTC October 28 (8:00 PM – 5:00 AM the night of October 27-28, USA Central Time).  The verification that the spacecraft has completed the lunar flyby will be a shift in frequency due to Doppler shift, indicating that the spacecraft has stopped flying away from Earth but is now returning.

Currently, I have received only one report that the W0IS.COM message was received, from LU1HKO in Cordoba, Argentina.  Additional reception reports will probably be posted on October 30 at the conclusion of the LuxSpace contest.

As this is posted (0038 UTC, OCt. 28), the spacecraft is approximately 381,000 kilometers from Earth.  According to the LuxSpace tracking data, the distance is slowly decreasing, indicating it has completed the Lunar flyby and is returning to Earth.

Earlier posts regarding 4M-LXS spacecraft.

Fernando, LU1HKO, Cordoba, Argentina, just reported that he received the W0IS.COM message from the 4M-LXS spacecraft en route to the moon. The message was in the following packet of data:

000400 5 -21 3.535 35 3* W0IS.COM 1 0 0.0

I’ve asked Fernando to send me some details of his station, and will post them here when available.  I’m not sure of the exact time the message was received, but the spacecraft is currently about 348,000 km from Earth.

Earlier posts regarding 4M-LXS spacecraft.

According to the LuxSpace blog, the 4M-LXS spacecraft is not about one light-second away from Earth, meaning that it takes one second for the signals to reach earth.  The blog also reports that the messages being sent from the spacecraft are about to cycle, meaning that all messages have been sent once, and will now repeat.

This means that the W0IS.COM URL has been transmitted from space once.  Since the earth stations seem to be collectively copying 100%, it is likely that the signal has been received.  We have not yet received any reception report.   Since LuxSpace is running a contest for stations to report the number of messages received, this information is not yet being published.  We are confident, however, that the message has been transmitted from the spacecraft to Earth, and continue to seek verification.

The 4M-LXS Spacecraft was successfully launched from China today, at or near the scheduled launch time of Thursday, October 23, at 12:59 PM U.S. Central Time.

The spacecraft was successfully activated, and it signals have been received in Brazil.  The official announcement can be found at the LuxSpace blog.

An article about the mission, the first ever privately funded Lunar mission, can be found at the Air & Space magazine website.  During its Lunar orbit, the spacecraft will transmit the URL of our parent website, w0is.com.  More information can be found in my earlier posts.

As we announced in an earlier post, we have prepared a message (the URL of our parent site, w0is.com) that will be sent from Lunar orbit as part of the LuxSpace Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M).

LuxSpace has announced that all messages, including ours, have now been uploaded to the spacecraft and that each uploaded message will be sent from Lunar orbit at least twice. LuxSpace will be conducting a contest during the mission for earthbound participants to receive as many messages as possible.  It is hoped that many of the participants will post their received copy after the contest.

The message will be transmitted from the Moon on 145.98 MHz using JT65B mode. The Lunar orbit is scheduled for October 28. Full technical details are available at LuxSpace’s mission page.