SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0130 * SpaceNews 30-Jan-95 * BID: $SPC0130 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY JANUARY 30, 1995 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for unlimited free distribution. * SCHOOL CONTACT WITH MIR * =========================== A radio contact between the Nashua (New Hampshire) High School and the cosmonauts on the Russian space station Mir took place on Tuesday 17-Jan-95. The contact went very well, and Nashua High School enjoyed a horizon to horizon contact with Exeter High School joining in at the very end. Miles (WF1F) took his equipment up to supplement the Nashua High station and Cosmonaut Valery answered 14-16 Questions from students. Dave, N1PPP, monitored the contact from his home in Claremont, N.H. and was able to clearly hear nearly everything that was said by Valery. Dave, N6JLH uploaded the questions to Mir beforehand, after Dave made the initial contact with Valery. N1PPP would like to thank all who helped make the contact possible, especially N6JLH and WF1F. As Dave, N1PPP puts it, "It is always a lot of work, but very worthwhile when it ends with a good contact with a school". [Info via Dave, N1PPP] * ITAMSAT NEWS * ================ Spacecraft status as of 24-Jan-95: After two months of unattended operation under IHT ver 2.0 control, ITAMSAT (IO-26) is sending telemetry and WOD dumps in good health. Signals are reported to be strong and easy to decode. I2KBD has passed to the ground controllers the final version of the IHT ver 3.0 with auto scheduling capabilities, that will enable auto shut-off of the trasmitter during scheduled time, to save battery and allow higher power operations when the BBS is running. Upload of the new IHT was expected to start last week, followed by WOD dumps to evaluate the power saving. If all goes fine, BBS operations is expected by the first ten days of February. A World Wide Web (WWW) page on ITAMSAT and AMSAT member from Italy, is expected to start soon, more news ASAP! [Info via Alberto E. Zagni, I2KBD] * WATCH FOR MIR & STS-67! * =========================== The STS-63 Space Shuttle mission is scheduled to be launched at 02-Feb-95 at 05:50:44 UTC. This mission will rendezvous with Mir on the fourth day of the mission, but will not dock. Mir will be visible in the morning sky over much of the US during this flight. Since MIR and the shuttles are individually large and bright, the two of them flying in formation should be a beautiful sight! Normally the shuttle's exact path is not known until after it has been launched. However, Mir's orbit is well established and should remain stable from now until the end of the STS-63 mission. Since the shuttle will fly to Mir, the orbital track of Mir will be a close approximation of that of the Shuttle. It is suggested than anyone who is interested in watching Mir and the Space Shuttle start keeping tabs on Mir now by looking for good passes for your area. You'll need a tracking program that can check for VISIBLE passes. For a satellite to be visible, it must be above your horizon and in sunlight while you are in darkness on the ground. One tip: most satellites are so faint that they aren't visible unless the sun is at least ten or twelve degrees below the horizon. Mir and the shuttle, however, are both very bright, so you should set your tracking program to look for passes where the sun is at least 4 degrees below the horizon. The sky can be so bright you can read a newspaper and you'll still be able to see either of these spacecraft. If you spot any good passes, please be sure to tell others where and when to look. And don't forget to monitor 145.55 for ham activity from either spacecraft! The following are the preliminary Keplerian elements for STS-67: Satellite: STS-67 Catalog number: 00067 Epoch time: 95061.32643015 = (02-MAR-95 07:50:03.56 UTC) Element set: 004 Inclination: 28.4675 deg RA of node: 88.9985 deg Space Shuttle Flight STS-67 Eccentricity: .0004519 Prelaunch element set JSC-004 Arg of perigee: 287.7960 deg Launch: 02-MAR-95 06:37 UTC Mean anomaly: 72.2100 deg Mean motion: 15.71297841 rev/day Gil Carman :Decay rate: 1.1689e-04 rev/day^2 NASA Johnson Space Center Epoch rev: 2 Checksum: 304 [Info via The AMSAT News Service and Dave Mullenix, N9LTD] * RS-15 KEP UPDATE * ==================== The latest Keps for RS-15 (Element set #21) from NASA OIG RAID RBBS agree VERY WELL with estimated elements (N2WWD set #5). The official NASA elements for RS-15 as computed by Space Command are: RS-15 1 23439U 94085A 95018.43232054 -.00000039 00000-0 10000-3 0 216 2 23439 64.8172 137.1826 0167589 287.8288 70.4424 11.27524601 2639 The equivalent elements in AMSAT format are: Satellite: RS-15 Catalog number: 23439 Epoch time: 95018.43232054 Element set: 21 Inclination: 64.8172 deg RA of node: 137.1826 deg Eccentricity: 0.0167589 Arg of perigee: 287.8288 deg Mean anomaly: 70.4424 deg Mean motion: 11.27524601 rev/day Decay rate: -3.90e-07 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 263 The comparison of the above elements against N2WWD set 5 yields the following differences: Differences for Epoch Update of 23.17 days: In-Plane Phasing: 0.003383 rev = 25.9 sec Plane Difference: 0.021314 deg Height Difference: 3.790436 km Period Difference: 0.000015 rev = 0.115 sec Ken, N2WWD wishes to thank Space Command for their attention to the problem and their efforts in identifying the RS-15 spacecraft from the other pieces in the debris cloud. With this news, Ken is retiring N2WWD estimated element set #5 for RS-15. [Info via Ken Ernandes, N2WWD] * NEWS CORRECTIONS * ==================== Ted Cline, N0RQV, reports the full WWW address (URL) for the "AMSAT Home Page" reported in last week's issue of SpaceNews is: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/AmsatHome.html Steve, WD8QCN, found NOAA-14 transmitting HRPT data on 1698.0 MHz. This was true for the first few passes that he observed, however it seems to have been switched to 1707 MHz a few weeks ago. Steve tracked several passes on 12-13-Jan where the only transmissions heard were on 1707 MHz. Steve feels it is unlikely that he locked onto another bird, since NOAA-14 shows up much earlier than the other NOAAs right now, and his antenna has a beamwidth of 0.75 degrees at L-Band. * FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED * =========================== Mail to SpaceNews should be directed to the editor (John, KD2BD) via any of the following paths: FAX : 1-908-747-7107 PACKET : KD2BD @ KS4HR.NJ.USA.NA INTERNET : kd2bd@amsat.org -or- magliaco@pilot.njin.net SATELLITE : AMSAT-OSCAR-16, LUSAT-OSCAR-19 MAIL : John A. Magliacane, KD2BD Department of Engineering and Technology Advanced Technology Center Brookdale Community College Lincroft, New Jersey 07738 U.S.A. <<=- SpaceNews: The first amateur newsletter read in space! -=>> /EX