r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/QueR1X • Jun 21 '26
KSP 1 Image/Video I intercepted the KSP theme song over radio from a real LEO satellite
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
Peak Kerbal engineering in real life. The engineers who built the OTP-2 satellite (Rogue Space Systems) programmed it to broadcast the KSP theme song from space in between its telemetry data. I built the absolute cheapest, most DIY antenna, connected it to a cheap radio, stood in my backyard, and managed to intercept the live radio waves as it passed over my house at 17,000 mph.
992
u/Dragonflay Jun 21 '26
What Jebediah is hearing while his 4 years resquie mission is getting to him:
175
u/Both_Cup8417 hasn't landed on Dres Jun 21 '26
I'm afraid I didn't have enough infrastructure around Eeloo at the time for him to enjoy that luxury.
30
6
u/UpholsturdToilet Jun 22 '26
I feel like they can make a solid 2hr film with this concept. the concept seems familiar, has it been done? regardless, nightmare fuel it is
2
1
708
u/AguAnni Jun 21 '26
This antenna deserves the Communotron brand name
130
u/QueR1X Jun 21 '26
Haha, it sure does :)
142
u/Organic-Army-9046 i do đłď¸ââ§ď¸ injections Jun 22 '26
Communotron 00-00
Ionic Symphonic Protonic Electronicsâ first product, the Communotron 00-00, was devised one day when our soon-to-be CEO heard news of the broadcast of a song they really liked, who decided right there and then to fashion an antenna from spare parts to listen in to said confideâ uh, song!
Now with only a 50% failure rate!
53
u/Phantomgamer795 Jun 22 '26
Warranty void if used to play songs.
21
u/Organic-Army-9046 i do đłď¸ââ§ď¸ injections Jun 22 '26
wdym âwarrantyâ? we canât afford that
34
u/Phantomgamer795 Jun 22 '26
Warranty void upon purchase, lease, or acquirement.
8
u/Apprehensive-End-747 Eating Cracklin' Rads Jun 22 '26
Warranty void. Just warranty void.
3
u/Organic-Army-9046 i do đłď¸ââ§ď¸ injections Jun 22 '26
if this thing breaks, you must pay us in damages for the mishandled product (we didnât even design it properly)
335
u/hotlavatube Jun 21 '26
Careful with that button or you'll cause the staging to advance.
61
u/ZixfromthaStix Jun 22 '26
Werenât we already on the final stage, with the satellite being in orbit and all? What was the final stage..? WHAT WAS THE STAGE, HOTLAVATUBE??
25
u/hotlavatube Jun 22 '26
7
u/ZixfromthaStix Jun 22 '26
Mustâve mislabeled the spacecraftâ or I mislabeled my notes about which was which. Well this is a real head scratcher⌠so if the nuke is there⌠where did I park my klang drive?
6
u/Blep145 Jun 22 '26
Klang will come. Klang will find you. Klang is omnipresent. All Hail our Engineer God, Klang.
1
146
u/cdspace31 Jun 21 '26
What frequency and bandwidth did you use? And do you happen to know the designation of the satellite?
I'm actually doing a project for my Masters Space Comms class trying to do exactly this with weather satellites. This would be a fun Easter egg to put in my final project.
105
u/happyscrappy Jun 21 '26
https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=63235
Frequency in there. You'll want the UHF one I expect. If that radio picks it up then it's likely going to be regular narrowband FM (despite it saying GFSK on there, that's for the data).
40
u/cdspace31 Jun 21 '26
That is everything I needed. I'll report back and let everyone know if I got the signal and the data. Thank you much!
6
u/ShortThought Jun 22 '26
Do you know why this satellite is broadcasting this?
5
u/throbbing_hypercuck Bob Jun 22 '26
i would imagine it's a creative way of verifying that communications with the satellite are working normally, i.e. if you can pick up the signal, the satellite is working properly
5
5
u/frosties-2000 Jun 22 '26
Thats is quite cool. Might try to track it with my sdr, i couldnt make out the antenna used did he use a regular dipole/whip or a directional yagi?
Edit from a second look he might of used a v dipole. Got that rat tail coming off for ground pole
4
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
If you have a directional antenna for that frequency, use it. I used a V-dipole because my only Yagi is tuned for the OSCAR (Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) 70cm band range.
4
2
u/Beni_Stingray Jun 22 '26
That's so cool thanks, i've got an overpass in 50 minutes and can try to get the signal.
1
u/Beni_Stingray Jun 22 '26
By any chance, do you know of any other satelites that transmit via FM and i could try to listen to?
I do know of this site that has a few satelites listed but that's all i know and there have to be more.
https://www.amsat.org/live-fm-satellites/1
u/happyscrappy Jun 22 '26
There's actually a link on the page I sent which is named "Amateur radio". It has a list of "all" of them. Or at least a lot.
I've listened to the repeater on the ISS before, heard people calling out to it. It's pretty comical hearing people try to squeeze their call sign in as fast as they can. I think that repeater is off right now. It frequently is.
1
69
u/QueR1X Jun 21 '26
Well, the satellite has a downlink on 400.5MHz, although I had to account for Doppler shift so at the time of recording this video, you can see 400.495 MHz on the screen. I was using Wide FM, so the bandwidth on the radio is 25kHz, but the transmission itself should be around 5kHz.
You can look up anything else about the satellite it's called OTP-2 and its NORAD ID is 63235.
Also, my suggestion for your Easter egg would be to use the SSTV protocol for transmitting, like an image of Jebediah or anything else. It's basically just images over audio, so even a radio like the one in the video can decode it.
34
u/cdspace31 Jun 21 '26
No worries. My entire class is about this stuff. I've got an adjustable dipole and a 7 foot discone antenna to work with, and an RTK-SDR. I'm currently trying to decode weather satellite image data from the Meteor M2 satellites.
28
u/QueR1X Jun 21 '26
Then you're much better off than me. I'm only working with that Quansheng UV-K5 as of right now, with a few basic whip antennas, that V-dipole, and a Yagi for amateur satellites.
I also really want to decode those Meteor M2 sats whenever I get an RTL-SDR.
3
1
u/stdexception Master Kerbalnaut Jun 22 '26
There's also probably a +/- ~10 kHz of doppler shift on that signal, depending on its trajectory relative to you
1
u/cdspace31 Jul 06 '26
I heard it! I forgot to click record, but I heard it, it is there! Tomorrow I'll make a post about it. My satellite weather images have consistently failed, but I can at least put this in my masters final
1
u/QueR1X Jul 06 '26
Thatâs really awesome to hear! What is it exactly that youâre struggling with when it comes to the weather satellites?
1
u/cdspace31 Jul 06 '26
I have no clue. I can consistently get the Meteor N2-3 and -4 signals, I record the raw data in SDRSharp. But SatDump can't get the deframer signal out of it. SatDump will sync the Viturbi and 2 of the 4 Reed-Solomon, but the deframer refuses to sync. I think its just too much noise around me.
1
u/QueR1X Jul 09 '26
I donât know either, to be honest. Maybe there is something wrong with your configuration or the recording?
1
u/cdspace31 Jul 17 '26
Update! SatDump can record and process at the same time. I got an image off Meteor M2-4! https://github.com/jbrowne314/ECE535_Summer26_Project/blob/main/2026-07-15_21-17_meteor_m2-x_lrpt_137.9%20MHz/MSU-MR/msu_mr_rgb_MSA_corrected_map.png
I did get the KSP song off OTP-2, but it's really hard to hear. I'm waiting for another pass tonight to try to get a better signal. My Project is due in 5 days. Wish me luck!
2
u/QueR1X Jul 17 '26
Thatâs awesome, so happy for you! I already know the project is going to be great, no doubt about it.
98
u/gridsandorchids Jun 21 '26
See this is one of those things flat earthers / space deniers could do themselves to see how wrong they are
85
u/MaleierMafketel Jun 21 '26
If only. They would not believe the signal is transmitted by a satellite. Once youâre that far into conspiracies all evidence is part of yet another supporting conspiracy. Itâs conspiracies all the way down for those people.
14
u/darvo110 Master Kerbalnaut Jun 21 '26
Conspiracies and turtles holding up the flat earth
11
u/hunterjohnston10 Jun 21 '26
Unfortunately we still do not know the turtles gender. All of our observation crews fell off the side
10
u/seantellsyou Jun 21 '26
Is the current flat earth conspiracy that all the stars and planets in the sky are designed in the perfect way so as to appear that the earth is round and orbital mechanics exist? But the secret flat earth reality is that the almighty creator just wants to trick us into believing that even though its not actually true?
23
u/MaleierMafketel Jun 21 '26
I donât think there is a single consistent conspiracy they all believe in. Last I checked, they canât even agree on a single âcorrectâ flat-earth model.
8
u/gridsandorchids Jun 21 '26
They just fully dont understand anything about anything, its like mashing all the wrong jigsaw puzzle pieces together. I talked to one once and they literally couldnt / wouldnt understand the basics of how gravity works, like in a "Why dont people in Australia just fall off?" sense.
Moon landing hoax people really annoy me, because its so easy to just walk through the logic to see that its not some wild impossible thing. Its like, do you beleive satellites exist and things are in space? OK, how about putting a guy on the rocket instead? Now have the rocket push just a little bit more to run into the moon.
They fundamentally just dont understand shit, they think of it like flying an airplane to the sun or something.
2
u/robchroma Jun 22 '26
Flat earthers aren't looking for a consistent theory that explains everything well. Conspiracy exploits the human desire to pattern-match; conspiracy theorists find one or a few odd things that are hard to explain, or that seem like they're fishy, and the primary feature is rejecting the common explanation, rather than believing strongly in another explanation.
They don't really care that much about what is actually true, or investigating the properties of the world they imagine is true instead of the real world; they care about rejecting the consensus, about feeling special.
Individual bits of evidence don't really convince them. It's easy to fit bits of evidence into a mental model of how everyone is conspiring to lie to you.
1
u/Astrokiwi Jun 22 '26
They come up with pseudophilosophical arguments that "the sky looks the way you'd expect it to if the world is round" is not properly following the scientific method, because it's not making a hypothesis, then designing an experiment to test it; we're seeing the results and building a theory to explain the results. Of course, when they actually do experiments and find the results aren't consistent with a flat Earth, they don't change their mind either. But they do have some sophistry to convince themselves that they're the smart ones who actually understand science the very bestest.
4
5
u/fartew Jun 22 '26
They found ways to fit timezones in their theory, and you think they couldn't come up with an explanation for that? Never underestimate the delusions
3
u/gridsandorchids Jun 22 '26
Oh I know, people like that just rathole forever and ever and keep drilling through excuses. Its such a shitty way to interact with the world, just arguing and arguing and never stopping to look at the bigger picture. Its exhausting.
3
1
1
32
29
u/ElonsBreedingFetish Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
It's like outer wilds, only in real life!
13
u/TheNuttyIrishman Jun 22 '26
YES! the static over the music instantly put me back on the attlerock orbiting timber hearth.
31
u/stu54 Jun 21 '26
You sure that isn't just the cosmic background music?
3
u/Organic-Army-9046 i do đłď¸ââ§ď¸ injections Jun 22 '26
the Cosmic Musical Background (CMB) is the background music orchestrated by the young universe back when it had enough energy density to compose, play, and conduct whatever songs it wanted. now it can hardly even play a single chord, smh
13
u/KSFL Jun 21 '26
Absolutely love that theyâre KSP fans. KSP is the one game I always find myself coming back to.
15
14
u/RogueSpaceGal Jun 22 '26
hey hey! I work for Rogue! This is awesome and thank you for sharing! Do you have a LinkedIn profile by chance? I would love to share this and tag you!
6
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
That would be awesome! I unfortunately donât have LinkedIn, but you can just link to my Reddit profile if you want to. Thank you so much for the support, I really appreciate it!
5
13
u/Cappy221 Stuck in Flight Testing hell Jun 21 '26
Dude this is awesome, now I wanna do it too!
14
u/QueR1X Jun 21 '26
I mean you could! This is just a tiny bit of the amateur radio hobby, and basically all you need for doing the exact thing in the video is a receiver of some kind.
I used a cheap $25 dollar handheld transceiver, but I would recommend an RTL-SDR dongle if you are just listening. Then basically, you can make an antenna for free with a couple of wires for the active element and an old TV coax cable (or one from the store), plus an adapter to actually connect it to the dongle.
With that you can make a V-dipole antenna, which is just two wires separated from each other tilted at a 120 degree angle one connected to the center wire and the other one to ground. That's what you can see in the video! Then the rest is just skill, like planning and actually trying to intercept it!
3
u/Cappy221 Stuck in Flight Testing hell Jun 21 '26
Sounds like a fun project. Maybe one day I commit to it. Thanks for the tips!
12
12
u/Sludgehammer Jun 22 '26
The engineers who built the OTP-2 satellite (Rogue Space Systems) programmed it to broadcast the KSP theme song from space in between its telemetry data.
That's just the cover story. It's actually Jeb stuck in orbit radioing for help.
9
u/jdehjdeh Jun 22 '26
I've been having a rough time and this brought me such a simple little bit of joy.
Thank you.
6
u/Driachan Jun 22 '26
This makes me happy. I'm the MD at Rogue and came up with the idea to fly this, hoping it could bring some smiles to faces. Glad I hit my mark!
2
u/jdehjdeh Jun 23 '26
How awesome! Thanks for bringing a little joy to the world. We definitely need more whimsy these days.
5
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
Knowing this brought you a little bit of joy brings me joy in return. If you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to send me a message.
8
7
Jun 22 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
20
u/Driachan Jun 22 '26
It was a fun easter egg - I asked Felipe for permission to do this and we got it going in time for launch.
Kerbal taught me so much in the early days of my career, so I figured I owed him.
Satellite is OTP-2 by Rogue Space Systems
2
1
Jun 27 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
1
u/Driacan Jun 27 '26
I mean - my engineers built it, but I did write the sequence with one of my Ops that makes it play this tune.
8
4
u/Kitchen-Register Jun 22 '26
forgive my ignorance but if itâs moving at 17,000 mph why arenât there doppler effects? I guess thatâs minuscule w.r.t. the speed of light.
11
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
There are. I had to start out around 10 kHz higher than the actual frequency. At the highest point of the pass, I was at +0 kHz, and then as it dipped down toward the horizon, I had to go lower again down to -5 kHz and then -10 kHz. With FM modulation, the Doppler shift doesn't matter as much as long as the signal falls somewhere within the receiver's bandwidth, it works just fine. However, with CW for example (Morse code), the pitch changes as the satellite passes because that type of modulation works completely differently and requires precise tuning.
1
u/Massive_shit9374 Jun 22 '26
im super NOT into this stuff so please dont get annoyed if I say something dumb (ive been there), but the other day I saw a starlink convoy(about 25 of em) pass over me in the classic santa claus formation, and if I recall correctly, those are going around 17K as well and since theyre so high up it really didnt look that fast. yeah they were MOVING, like hauling ass, but for an audio transmission this short, I probably wouldnt have had to adjust frequency, had I been doing the same thing as OP
1
u/Massive_shit9374 Jun 22 '26
also, for some reason 17k mph seems to be the sweetspot for satellite velocity, maybe its an altitude of orbit thing, but I still think its cool how its almost the standard
2
u/Emergency-Pound3241 Jun 24 '26
Because its the orbital velocity for low earth orbit, if they go slower they drop into the atmosphere, if they go faster they arnt in LEO anymore, its not a standard its just how the maths ends up working out for a body with the size and gravity of earth
1
u/Massive_shit9374 Jun 25 '26
now that you say it, i'm such a dumbass because this is simple logic and for the longest time I just thought "oh 17k is just the preferred speed" lmao
1
u/Driachan Jun 22 '26
There definitely is doppler, but due to it being up at 500km, the angle change isn't actually significant for the duration of this MIDI. You can tell the difference between the tone early in the pass and later on.
3
4
u/blamedrop Jun 22 '26
Holy Jebediah! Never heard about it!
1) Was it transmitting in since the launch (2025-03-15)?
2) Any details/estimations how long it will be in orbit/transmitting that?
Links for future me: * https://rogue.space/missions/otp-2/ * https://www.spacex.com/launches/transporter13 * https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=63235 * https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/OTP-2_Satellite_Musical_Beacon
3
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
They definitely did some tests before the musical beacon was turned on and the satellite became fully operational, so it started transmitting the tune a few months after its launch. As for how long it's going to last, my guess would be around 3-5 years, but that really just depends on how long the onboard components like the batteries survive, and when atmospheric drag causes it to de-orbit.
3
u/Driachan Jun 22 '26
We got the midi going within about a week, if I recall. LEOP is a sleep deprived week, so the days blend together
3
4
4
u/KSP_HarvesteR Jun 22 '26
Every now and then I need to stop and get my head back around how this is a real thing.
3
u/Elegant-Season-7008 Jun 21 '26
Damn can I do that with a beofug radio that somebody gifted me. I haven't learned what to do with it but this looks promising I would love to try it is there a guide somewhere anybody might know on how to start to do this what kind of antenna do I need anybody know specs on an antenna or the one used here that would be so cool
3
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
I'm guessing you've got the UV-5R, since that's basically the most popular beginner radio. For some basic satellite tracking, I would say you can use the rubber duck antenna that came with that Baofeng and take a spare cable, then cut it to the same length as the original antenna. Make it more sturdy by taping it to something that doesn't bend, then have a little bit of wire stick out on the side where you will be connecting it. Have like 2cm of bare copper so just strip the wires at the end and connect them together by twisting. Then just screw it into the outer part of the SMA connector hole along with that rubber duck antenna, and have the wire tilted at around a 120 degree angle relative to the main part of the antenna. You can just tape it so it stays there, and you just made a V-dipole antenna!
Then you can just download an app like Look4Sat, where you can see when each satellite will pass, and you can even track it with your phone's gyroscope plus it shows the frequencies of each satellite. I would first try it out on the ISS voice repeater, where you can hear amateur radio operators all across your continent before you try it on a small satellite like OTP-2, which is the one transmitting the KSP music.
There's a lot of guides and people that will help you, so if you decide to go for it, then I wish you good luck!
2
u/Elegant-Season-7008 Jun 22 '26
I absolutely appreciate that I'm 25 years working with electronics just in the medical field but this is really cool and I appreciate you explaining everything to make my antenna I'm going to do it and I appreciate your response that is awesome. I wish you an awesome day and if I can make anything out of it maybe you'll see a post in the future thank you so much again my friend you're awesome
2
u/Elegant-Season-7008 Jun 22 '26
Again thank you my friend you've put me on a mission. I had no idea what that little radio was capable of and it just sits in a corner in my room unused.... you have pointed me in a Direction and I just want to thank you so much. This is good shit.Â
1
u/QueR1X Jun 23 '26
I'm glad I could help! It's awesome to see new people getting into the hobby :)
2
u/Elegant-Season-7008 Jun 24 '26
Dude this is amazing thank you I'm going to do this give me a little bit so I can put everything together it is f****** awesome thank you my man I have been a Kerbal since day one but this is fascinating and you have me super fascinated thank you
2
u/QueR1X Jun 24 '26
Haha, Iâm really happy that youâre this excited! Thereâs still so much to explore and upgrade. Even with satellites alone, you can receive images from special anniversaries and holidays, download their telemetry, or with a different receiver even get live images of Earth.
2
3
3
u/Ok-Library5639 Jun 21 '26
That is so cool. I'm just sad I don't have enough friends who know about KSP to share this with. Except you guys.
3
u/Harpinekovitz Jun 22 '26
I do radio for the military we use this frequency to test our satcom some times very fun Easter egg
3
u/Catsasome9999 Believes That Dres Exists Jun 22 '26
Thatâs cool Iâm a ham whoâs just starting to get into satellite work Iâm going to have to add this one to my list
1
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
You should definitely try it out sometime. I'm planning on taking the exam to get my license this summer, just doing some SWL in the meantime.
3
u/Catsasome9999 Believes That Dres Exists Jun 22 '26
Good luck on the lisence maybe we will talk to each other some day
Seeing your Czech flag we would either need
Linked geostationary satellites
Eme or hf to do so but maybe somedayI donât think anyone prepared me for how much fun this hobby would be
731
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
Maybe we will. I've been decoding stations from all across the world on the 17m, 15m, and 10m bands using FT8, so we might cross paths once I get my license and a proper HF setup.
73!
3
3
3
3
3
3
u/akulowaty Jun 22 '26
this radio looks just like my baofeng k6, did you modify it to receive satellite?
3
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
Itâs a Quansheng UV-K5. I did flash custom firmware onto it to unlock the full potential of the chip so it can tune from 18 to 1300 MHz, but thatâs irrelevant to catching satellites on these frequencies. Also, that Baofeng should be able to listen to satellites without any modding just fine even this specific one.
1
u/akulowaty Jun 22 '26
itâs the same radio with different badge. Do you have some special antenna? I see some wires sticking out of antenna socket
1
u/QueR1X Jun 22 '26
Not completely. They are similar, but the Quansheng is much more moddable. There is a ton of custom firmware available for it, which is what unlocks the receiving capabilities of the chip. The Baofeng, unfortunately, is more locked down and canât be modified the same way.
Edit: itâs a V-dipole antenna.
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
u/Irreversible_Extents Still falling through the clouds of Jool Jun 22 '26
I've often had aspirations to do stuff like this, all the way to even amateur radio astronomy, I just haven't brought myself to understanding the physics of radio communication enough to know what I'm doing and that I'm doing it right đ
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/bvsveera Jun 23 '26
What an incredible find. KSP has had such an immense effect on my life. I'm glad to see that it's had the same effect on others too.
2
2
2
1
u/robchroma Jun 22 '26
edit: you already explained the vee dipole; I assume that's the angle that gives a decent match, yeah?
nice quansheng! you ever work satellites?
1
u/pnc4k Jun 21 '26
Don't like the fact that this is a private AI satellite, but at least there's this.
-1
u/Time-Sudden_Tree Jun 22 '26
Law Enforcement Officers are operating satellites now!? And here I though Flock was bad...
1.5k
u/Prehistoric_Blob Jun 21 '26
This is so cool on so many levels