Experimental radio electronics is my life's credo
The focus of Brno University of Technology on space technologies is not just a matter of the last few years. This is evidenced by the story of Professor Miroslav Kasal, a long-time lecturer and researcher at the Department of Radio Electronics of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication at FEEC BUT. The internationally recognized expert on radio communication played an important role in the early days of space technology research and development at BUT.
What led you to radio electronics? What fascinated you about the field?
I have been a lifelong radio amateur. In my youth, I also enjoyed building model airplanes. When I was about fourteen, the first radio-controlled models appeared. This fascinated me so much that I gave up model building and stayed with radio. Experimental radio electronics fascinated me and became my life's creed. To generate an electromagnetic field somewhere in America with the power of a single light bulb is simply amazing. This enthusiasm for the field later led me to study at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, where I understood the physics of the issue and learned the theory. After graduating in 1970, I started a study placement at the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (ÚPT) and stayed there for 32 years.
How do you remember your time at ÚPT and what did you do there?
Those were amazing years. The director was Professor Armin Delong (founder of electron microscopy in the Czech Republic, ed. note). ÚPT employed top researchers and skilled craftsmen from all over Moravia and offered very decent equipment. Research was a joy there, and I learned a lot. I was involved in the research and development of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, which were manufactured by the company Tesla. This was a new area that was just developing worldwide. Later, from 1991 to 2002, I was the head of the NMR department at the institute.
How did you get from spectroscopy to radio communication in space?
High-frequency spectroscopy is essentially pure radio electronics. It's just not used for communication, but for measurement. It's very similar to long-distance radio communication. It was therefore natural that, starting in the 1970s, I also became interested in artificial satellites and space probes, primarily from the perspective of radio communication. This was also a completely new area at the time. That's why I also got involved in the activities of the international non-profit organization AMSAT (The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, ed. note). It brought together radio amateurs from all over the world with the same focus. Among them were a number of top professionals from universities, but also from NASA and ESA. Despite certain obstacles posed by the political conditions of the time, I began to cooperate with them.
With 1989, the political restrictions ended. What direction did you take under the new circumstances?
After 1989, AMSAT launched a large international project with the participation of 13 countries. Based on our previous cooperation, they offered me to get involved. I was tasked with developing and implementing on-board communication systems in the L-band (1269 MHz) for the PHASE 3D satellite. It was a maneuvering satellite in a high elliptical orbit with a mass of 640 kg. I accepted the offer, but it was a very responsible and time-consuming job. That's why I was pleased when the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, where I had been teaching part-time at the Department of Radio Electronics (ÚREL) since the 1970s, showed great interest in the project. It was logical that I soon started working full-time at the department. The fact that Tesla stopped producing spectrometers also contributed to this, and the future in the new field seemed more promising to me.
Your time at ÚREL is associated not only with the PHASE 3D project but also with the construction of a ground telemetry and command station for communicating with satellites. How are these two things related?
The satellite was launched into orbit by an Ariane 5 rocket in October 2000 from French Guiana, where I traveled to participate in the pre-launch preparations. Before that, we managed to build the mentioned ground station for satellite communication and control at the department. That's why I rushed home just before the launch so that my colleagues and I could receive the first telemetry data from orbit. We gradually improved the station, and in 2002 we achieved full remote control via the internet, which allowed the satellite to be controlled from the USA and Australia as well. This was a great success given the possibilities of the time. The station also became an integral part of the newly established Laboratory of Experimental Satellites. In 2013, we moved it to the 7th floor of the faculty building at Technická 12 and built new antennas on the roof for communication with satellites.
Can the creation of the station and its involvement in the PHASE 3D project be considered the beginning of serious space technology research at the faculty?
Yes, that's right. But the very beginnings of space technologies at FEKT BUT go back to the 1980s, when I was teaching part-time at ÚREL and started collaborating with AMSAT. The creation of the station was a logical continuation of the previous development. Its construction attracted a number of skilled people from the faculty – PhD students as well as bachelor's and master's students, mostly through annual and diploma projects.
In addition to the AMSAT project, you have been involved in controlling satellites for the prestigious U.S. Naval Academy and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Based on our publication collaboration, I was approached by staff from the U.S. Naval Academy Satellite Laboratory. The goal was to create the receiving part of a jointly designed narrow-band transponder for slow data communication. Together with my PhD students, we designed and implemented the receiver. The entire transponder was then launched in June 2006 by the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS), where it was installed and operated experimentally in autonomous mode. After a year, it was returned to us in perfect working condition, and I later donated it to the Technical Museum in Brno. The cooperation with the U.S. Naval Academy subsequently continued with other projects – PSAT and BRICsat. For the ESA, we worked on a laser modulator driver for the eLISA project satellites, which will be tasked with finding very low-frequency gravitational waves.
The BDSAT project, in which you participated, also involved interesting experiments. Can you tell us more about it?
In 2020, CEITEC VUT and the company BD Sensors from Buchlovice asked us to create a ground control segment for the BDSAT nanosatellite project. We liked the project because the satellite's useful payload were two sophisticated experiments designed to test products for "Space Qualified" certification. This means whether they function without problems in space. The first experiment was to verify the functionality of pressure sensors, which are needed in large numbers in space technology. The second experiment was to test supercapacitors as a possible secondary energy source for small satellites instead of standard batteries. Unfortunately, BDSAT-1 went fatally silent about a month after launch. Fortunately, two satellites were being built at the same time, so we still have BDSAT-2 in orbit today, which works perfectly and both of the experiments described above are ongoing for a long time. Because we had free capacity even before the BDSAT mission started, we were able to accommodate our colleagues from Masaryk University and the Faculty of Aeronautics in Košice and for a year we provided communication with another very successful satellite, GRBAlpha, which as the smallest satellite detects X-ray bursts in space.
How do you see the future of space technology research and development at BUT?
We have very good conditions here. In addition to FEEC BUT, the Institute of Aerospace Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering BUT also deals with space technologies, and the role of companies from the Brno region is significant. Further cooperation with the Faculty of Science of MU could be promising. I think that this research area could become one of the main directions at BUT. But everything depends on the people and how they approach it. This area is tricky in that it is talked about a lot. People are engaged, they go to seminars and call for meetings, but the most important work must be done in laboratories on specific, very well-thought-out projects.
What are you currently working on?
I am 77 years old and I am certainly not bored. I'm finishing a book for an American publisher. It is a translation of my book "Weak Signals," which was published by BUT Publishing House in 2023. For the last ten years, I have also been involved in researching communication by reflecting a signal off the Moon. That's quite a bit of magic. The Moon is more than 350,000 km away, it is a relatively poor reflective surface, and communicating with this technology requires absolutely perfect radio equipment. So in the (so far) radio-quiet environment at my cottage in eastern Bohemia, I built an observatory where I have equipment and enjoy doing it. I no longer teach at the faculty, with the exception of a few lectures for PhD students, but I am there every now and then and help with what I can.
(kub)
The article was published in the magazine "Události na VUT" (February 2025, CZ only)
Source: zvut.cz/en
| Responsible person | Ing. et Ing. arch. Jana Němcová |
|---|---|
| Date of publication |