SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0108 * SpaceNews 08-Jan-96 * BID: $SPC0108 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY JANUARY 8, 1996 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for unlimited free distribution. * MIR NEWS * ============ The cosmonauts on the Russian space station Mir have unpacked their new Amateur Radio equipment and are expected to place it on the air shortly. The new equipment includes a 70-cm FM transceiver along with some 9600 baud packet radio equipment. * RS-15 NEWS * ============== G3IOR reports that RS-15's nighttime performance has changed. The transponder now remains ON for 1 second and OFF for 10 seconds during eclipse periods. RS-15 was seeing 36 minutes of eclipse each orbit during late December giving a battery charge efficiency of just 72%. The eclipse commences when the southbound satellite reaches 58N, continuing until it comes into sunlight again at 25S. The transponder and beacon become intermittent after RS-15 has been in eclipse for 5 minutes, when the battery drops to 12v DC. By 14th January, RS-15 will see 28 minutes of eclipse, going down to 20 minutes (85% charge efficiency) on 20th January, and 16 minutes (91%) on 22nd January. On 23rd January the satellite sees 100% sunlight again, and should give 24 hour/day operation again. Dave G4CUO and John G4ZHG have now worked via RS-15 all US states other than New Mexico, Delaware, Mississippi, Alabama and of course Hawaii. While the latter poses a problem, Dave would like to complete WAS of all mainland states and is regularly looking for USA contacts in the US evening periods between 0000 and 0300 UTC. * PRC-37 NEWS * =============== PRC-37, also known as 'JIANBING-93' is reputed to be the return package of a photo and radio 'spy-sat' that is due to re-enter in early 1996. Apparently the retro-rocket firing accidentally placed it into a highly elliptical orbit with a rather low perigee. It is designed for re-entry, and as the parachute is unlikely to deploy, will probably impact. Current studies show the 990 km apogee to be at 52N, and the 153 km perigee at 52S. No beacon frequency is known. Orbital enthusiasts may wish to study the re-entry as a precursor to the following of the demise of OSCAR-13, as few have had experience with elliptical orbiter return. No 'Chicken Little' contest has evolved to date! Here are a late 2-line Kep-Set:- JIANBING-93 P/L(1) 1 22870U 93063H 95335.24898568 .00304666 82639-5 20323-3 0 3248 2 22870 56.4566 96.6266 0604138 229.7187 124.9507 14.94537215 2456 [Info via Pat Gowen, G3IOR] * DOVE NEWS * ============= DOVE-OSCAR-17 returned to the 2-meter band sooner than expected after its recent on-board computer (OBC) crash only to experience another OBC crash on 29-Dec-95 at 0500 UTC while reloading new operating software. Normally, the 2-meter beacon transmitter switches OFF and the S-band beacon switches ON when the OBC crashes. A hardware failure on the satellite makes software upload very difficult and risky. This most recent crash came unexpectedly, and will require investigation. Recently copied DO-17 telemetry should be forwarded to Jim White, WD0E at his e-mail address: wd0e@amsat.org. * SpaceNews NEWS * ================== A compressed (ZIP) archive of all 1995 issues of SpaceNews are available via anonymous FTP at pilot.njin.net in the pub/SpaceNews subdirectory. The pub/SpaceNews/webersat-images subdirectory holds some WEBERSAT-OSCAR-18 images downloaded and processed by ZL1AAN. If time permits, some of these images may be complied into a World Wide Web page over the next month or so. * FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED * =========================== Comments and input for SpaceNews should be directed to the editor (John, KD2BD) via any of the paths listed below: FAX : 1-908-747-7107 FTP : pilot.njin.net cd to /pub/SpaceNews WWW : http://www.njin.net/~magliaco/ PACKET : KD2BD @ KS4HR.NJ.USA.NA INTERNET : kd2bd@amsat.org, 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