Some of the most exciting new ham satellites are barely bigger than a coffee mug. On October 1, 2026 — a few days earlier than planned — a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the Transporter-18 rideshare mission carrying AMSAT-Deutschland's three ERMINAZ-2 nanosatellites into orbit. Built at the satellite laboratory in the radome of the Bochum Observatory, the trio are 1P PocketQubes: just 50 millimeters on a side and about 250 grams each, now circling in sun-synchronous orbit at roughly 500 kilometers.
Their mission is to promote space knowledge and amateur radio through open-source protocols, telemetry, and image transmissions — and they are already transmitting. ERMINAZ-2U is on 435.900 MHz as DP0PQA, ERMINAZ-2V is on 145.920 MHz as DP0PQB, and ERMINAZ-2X is on 145.960 MHz as DP0PQC. All you need to join the fun is a VHF or UHF receiver, a simple handheld Yagi, and free tracking software. Decoding their telemetry is a perfect weekend project, and hearing your first satellite downlink never gets old.
It was a remarkably fast campaign. The flight models were integrated into the deployer at UARX in Vigo, Spain back in March 2026, riding on the OSSIE space tug that ferried the small satellites into their individual orbits. From flight opportunity to orbit in a matter of months — the shortest satellite campaign AMSAT-DL has ever run.
ERMINAZ-2 headlines a busy October in amateur space. ARICA-2 opened a message-relay mission on September 29, running through October 13 — send a message up and receive one down. And watch for Binar-567, three 1U CubeSats (Binar-5, -6, and -7) slated for launch no earlier than Q4 2026. Binar-6 carries a playful payload: amateurs worldwide are invited to transmit a UHF command to flash an LED that blinks the mission call sign in Morse code, on a coordinated downlink of 437.850 MHz. A satellite you can command, then watch blink at you — ham radio in space has never been more hands-on.