SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0504 * SpaceNews 04-May-98 * BID: $SPC0504 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY MAY 4, 1998 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use. * NEXT SHUTTLE FLIGHT TO MIR DELAYED * ====================================== CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - The space shuttle Discovery will be five days late picking up the last NASA astronaut to live on Russia's Mir space station, officials said last Tuesday. U.S. space agency officials decided to delay the launch of Discovery from 1998-May-28 to 1998-June-02 because launch preparations were running late, Kennedy Space Center spokesman Joel Wells said. "We had a very tight schedule and it was decided to allow some extra time," he said. The shuttle is to dock with Mir and pick up Andrew Thomas, NASA's last astronaut of a planned series of them to live and work on the Russian space outpost. The Australian-born astronaut has been aboard the orbiting outpost since January. NASA officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston said ground controllers in Moscow had been informed of the new launch date but they did not know if Thomas had received the news. Discovery was being attached to its rocket boosters and a new light weight fuel tank last Tuesday and was to be moved to the launch pad last week. * MIR SCHOOL DAY NEWS * ======================= The following is a quick summary of the 1998-Apr-27/28th Mir School Day test. The purpose of the test was to allow schools and students an opportunity to make a successful packet radio exchange with Mir, and to demonstrate the use of (unnumbered information frame) bulletins for communicating MIREX information to all monitoring stations. Other objectives were to demonstrate the use of Internet linked ground stations to merge their data into a common internet feed, and to demonstrate the use of ground station generated pseudo GPS positions digipeated by the spacecraft to show its realtime position. The Mir TNC was off for the day of the announced test (27th), but was on for three early morning passes on the 28th. A total of 27 schools or other participating stations were successful during the day-after test. All stations reported their position and status and there were several messages exchanged. Most stations reported receiving the Mir bulletins and the Mir position packets. On the 29th, several more stations were reported in the Western USA and South Africa. The results are posted on the Academy MIREX page at: http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/mirex.html daily captured downlink files can be viewed. This page scored 1300 hits during the event, and a total of 2800 since the experiment was announced on the first of April. The test is now over. The three Internet linked ground stations provided a continuous feed from the USA, Madrid and Taiwan (telnet to APRServe at 199.227.86.221 port 10001). The live Web page at http://www.mirex.net was operational on the 27th when there were no packets, but failed overnight. It was restored at the last minute on the 28th, but only caught a half dozen live packets. It remains live now. Organizers wish to thank the MIREX team and Dr. Larsen, N6CO, for making this test possible. [Info via Bob Bruninga, WB4APR] * RS-12 NEWS * ============== Rusty, NM1K, reports working FM/F5SSM, FM5JY, G4CUO, and WP4MSL via the RS-12 satellite over the past week. * RS-16 NEWS * ============== Leo, UA3CR, has reported through G7HIA, G3IOR, and W2RS that all attempts to place RS-16's transponder on the air have failed. Controllers will continue to try to bring RS-16 on-line, but there is not much hope that they will be successful. RS-16 is only expected to remain in orbit for about another year. * FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED * =========================== Comments and input for SpaceNews should be directed to the editor (John, KD2BD) via any of the paths listed below: WWW : http://www.njin.net/~magliaco/ PACKET : KD2BD @ KS4HR.NJ.USA.NA INTERNET : kd2bd@amsat.org, magliaco@email.njin.net SATELLITE : AMSAT-OSCAR-16, LUSAT-OSCAR-19, KITSAT-OSCAR-25 <<=- SpaceNews: The first amateur newsletter read in space! -=>> <<=- Serving the planet for 10 years -=>> /EX