Sounds from Space

 

On this part of my homepage you find soundtracks from various space objects including satellites, manned and unmanned space ships and space stations. Many of these objects are no more operational and I hope this archive will allow especially younger people to listen also to those objects, which are already gone. However, I hope that also some older people will enjoy to listen to the "Sounds from Space" which they may have heard live many decades ago. Please excuse the partially poor quality of some of the sound files and keep in mind, that many of the more than 1000 recordings are quite old. Please also notice the long list of people who kindly supported this project. Many thanks to all of them and especially to the key contributors which are acknowledged below. You can listen to a "Sound from Space" file whenever you click on one of the little animated speaker icons
To search any specific recording please enter a string in the white box and press the grey "Start search" button.

    

    Sounds from famous and historical Space Objects

Famous and historical Space Objects

 

    Sounds from Amateur Radio Satellites


Amateur Radio Satellites launched 1961 - 1975

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 1976 - 1985

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 1986 - 1995

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 1996 - 2005

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 2006 - 2010

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 2011 - 2013

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 2014 - 2016

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 2017 - 2018

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 2019 - 2022

Amateur Radio Satellites launched 2023 - today

 

    Sounds from Amateur Radio Missions on Space Ships and Space Stations

Amateur Radio Missions on Space Ships and Space Stations received 1983 - 2007

Amateur Radio Missions on Space Ships and Space Stations received 2008 -2018

Amateur Radio Missions on Space Ships and Space Stations received 2019 - today

 

    Sounds from Space Ships and Space Stations

Space Ships and Space Stations launched 1957 - 1965

Space Ships and Space Stations launched 1966 - 1975

Space Ships and Space Stations launched 1976 - today

 

    Sounds from Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 1957 - 1961

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 1962 - 1966

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 1967 - 1971

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 1972 - 1995

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 1996 - 2005

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 2006 - 2011

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 2012 - 2013

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 2014 - 2016

Scientific, Meteorological and Commercial Satellites launched 2017 - today

 

    Sounds from Space Ships to the Moon

Space Ships to the Moon

 

    Sounds from Interplanetary Space Probes

Interplanetary Space Probes

 

    Sounds from Pulsars, Stars and Planets

Pulsars, Stars and Planets

Credits


Matthias DD1US

How did this page get started? Well, I have been interested in satellite communications since the early 80's. I had subscribed to the NASA Prediction Bulletin mailing list and received every week a pile of paper with keplerian elements of various space objects. First I tracked them using hand calculations and charts. Later I developed my own satellite tracking software on a Z80 based computer to generate predictions and even satellite ground plots. I tracked many satellites as well as MIR and Shuttle missions. I received their radio signals and also observed them visually. You can read more about my early activities and how I got hooked to space communication by clicking on the screen shot from my original program to the right.

However this page did not really get started before I received one day an audio cassette with some historical sound files from my friend Alois Ochojski DL3PD (/SK since April 2007). They were derived from a phono-card, which he had received in 1962 from the national broadcast service of CSSR. He was kind enough to record it to tape and I finally converted them to digital audio files. You can hear an introduction to these files read by Alois DL3PD by clicking on his picture on the right. The original comments are in Czech language. After posting this initial set of 6 historical files, I started browsing through my own old tape recorded audio files, which were mostly signals of ham radio satellites, space station contacts and recordings as well as pictures from weather satellites.


Alois DL3PD/SK

Finally I also searched the internet and started to ask other people, whether they might have some older recordings too. Fortunately many of them were kind enough to support my project by submitting their own audio files. Below you find some references to those individuals, who helped me most during this project. On top of each section of the "Sounds from Space" collection you will find a complete list of all respective contributors. A big "thank you" to all of you who contributed. In case I missed one of you then please do not hesitate to address it to me.

Greg Roberts ZS1BI
Greg ZS1BI

In December 2007 this collection got another big push when I got in touch with Greg Roberts, ZS1BI, in Cape Town/South Africa. I guess I convinced him to start a project he had planned but pushed out for long time. Greg finally started to convert his old recordings from a tape recorder with elastic belt drives to electronic format. He is a retired professional astronomer and since 1957 has been actively involved in the tracking of artificial satellites, both by optical and radio means. Click on his picture to the left to get more information about him and his activities.

Mike Rupprecht is a very active radio amateur with the callsign DK3WN who dedicates most of his time to satellite communication. Over many years he has been instrumental in adding many recordings especially of Amateur Radio Satellites and other engineering satellites to this collection. Mike’s website at www.dk3wn.info is a great resource to get always up-to-date information on the presently active satellites and he also provides free downloads of several software packages to decode their telemetry.


Mike DK3WN


Paul M0EYT

Paul Marsh M0EYT obtained his Class B amateur license in June 1989, his interests are in Microwaves. Paul is a keen home constructor and enjoys building low noise amplifiers, antennas and converters, especially in the SHF and EHF frequency ranges. His current projects include continued optimization and operation of the X-Band and Ka-Band receive systems. Paul contributes to the www.uhf-satcom.com website with observations and also moderates the amateur-DSN and Hearsat-L newsgroups. Paul kindly has been contributing many unique recordings to this "Sounds from Space" collection.

In June 2010 I received a number of really old recordings from Richard Daniels W4PUJ/SK (ex WA4DGU) including such historical recordings as from Sputnik II and from the early OSCAR satellites. Dick has been very actively supporting AMSAT over many decades. He was on the AMSAT-NA board of directors and contributed extensively to many satellite projects such as AO-7, AO-40, (including his support during the launch campaign in Kourou) and as the project leader of AO-51 (AMSAT Echo). On February 14th 2012 Dick became a silent key. We will miss him.


Dick W4PUJ/SK


Sven Grahn

Sven Grahn dedicated his professional career to the field of space technology. He started as a sounding rocket assembly technician. After his study he joined the Swedish Space Corporation in 1975. He held various roles and finally was Senior Vice President of Engineering before retiring in 2006.
Sven is clearly addicted to radio signals and for more than forty years has been very active in listening to and interpreting of radio signals from space objects, particularly Russian satellites. Since 1966 he has been an active member of "the Kettering Group". This group had been started in 1960 by Geoff Perry, the senior science master at the Kettering Grammar School in the Midlands, U.K. and became famous for various achievements in satellite reception, especially on the early Soviet space programs.
Sven made major contributions to this collection by sharing many of his unique recordings from his own “Sounds from Space” collection. It had already existed for some time as part of his excellent website “
Sven’s Space Place”, which I did not know when I started mine, and by chance gave it the same name.

In April 2012 I received a nice Email from Federico Manzini offering me audio recordings from an Italian Enciclopaedia called L’uomo e lo spazio (The man and the space) which was issued 1965 by Fratelli Fabbri. This Enciclopaedia included 83 vinyl discs which Federico digitized and I extracted the audio recordings. Besides adding a number of new satellites this kind support from Federico brought this collection to an important milestone: since April 22nd 2012 the "Sounds from Space" collection now includes more than 1000 recordings.


Federico Manzini

If you have further recordings from space objects please let me know. I will be happy to post them on my homepage. You can help making this site become more valuable over time - many thanks in advance !

Vy 55 & 73 de Matthias DD1US               


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