SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-063.01 AMSAT MEETING IN FRANCE HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.01 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-063.01 On Saturday February 23th, Vincent Magrou F5JFT representing the REF Union at IARU, welcomed in Tours REF Headquarter 230 Km south of Paris an AMSAT delegation including Bill Tynan W3XO, President of AMSAT-NA, Vice President for Engineering Dick Jansson WD4FAB and Peter Guelzow DB2OS from AMSAT-DL one of the OSCAR 13 control station. Were also present Gerard Auvray F6FAO and Bernard Pidoux F6BVP Vice Presidents of the Radio Amateur Club de l'Espace and three representatives of the Club Aerospatial de la Celle Saint Cloud, who are awaiting callsigns after having obtained successfully their French Novice radioamateur license exams. Members of the CAC, RACE and DELTAC a third Club interested in space telecommunications have decided to create AMSAT France in order to promote activity in the field of amateur per satellite service in France. During the meeting Peter DB2OS was presented a 30,000 French Frank check by Jean Marie Gaucheron F3YP REF Union President representing a donation from REF to Phase 3-D Project. At the same occasion RACE presented to Dick Jansson WD4FAB two L band antenna reflectors for use on the Phase 3D satellite. They are composed of a 500 mm disk with a straight 78 mm border all in one piece without soldering and manufactured using a special process. The realization of these antennas have been supported by RACE and performed by a company near Bordeaux with the help of hams from the Club Jeune Science. Those contributions were performed by AMSAT France in order to significantly and effectively contribute to the Phase 3D satellite project. They follow $2700 of individual donations from french radio amateurs recorded by AMSAT-NA for Phase 3D. AMSAT France expressed the hope that it will be receiving additional contributions in order to help Phase 3D's successful achievement. ANS thanks Henri ORLAND, and Bernard PIDOUX, F6BVP /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-063.02 DARC SUPPORT OF PHASE 3D DETAILED HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.02 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-063.02 DARC contribution now total 900,000 DM, or about $ 600.000 according to Norbert Notthoff, DF5DP (DARC Staff Satellites And Space Projects. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- He states that in 1991 the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) signed an agreement with AMSAT-DL to support the Phase-3-D Project with 150,000 DM per year over a period of six years to a total sum of 900,000 DM. The DARC is the national German amateur radio organization within the IARU and represents nearly 60,000 hams in that country. In 1991 the DARC General Assembly had agreed to provide a major support to Phase-3-D, which it felt to be an important project for the whole Amateur Radio Service. The Assembly felt that this project demonstrates the state of the art of Amateur Radio as a means for technical development and self education. Additionally Phase-3D will enforce the usage of the ham radio microwave bands, which are under high pressure from other services. These are the main reasons why the DARC General Assembly decided to support the Phase-3D Project with contributions amounting to about $ 10 per member. In the recent years, DARC believes that its decision to support Phase-3D was very wise, because there are many threats against the Amateur Radio Service not only in Europe but elsewhere. DARC welcomes that meanwhile some more national IARU member societies support the AMSAT groups with donations for Phase 3-D. DARC's first payment was made in 1990, and the sixth and last in 1995 completing its pledge of 900,000 DM. DF5DP expressed pride that DARC could help to realize Phase3-D with this substantial contribution. ANS thanks Norbert Notthoff, DF5DP of DARC for this valuable information. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-063.03 ARIANE-501 LAUNCH CAMPAIGN BEGINS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.03 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-063.03 Preparations for the launch campaign for the first Ariane-5 qualification flight (501) are under way in Europe and at the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's spaceport. The main launcher elements (cryogenic main stage, storable propellant stage, vehicle equipment bay, Speltra and fairing) arrived in Kourou on 14 February on board the Toucan. The solid booster stages are assembled on site in Guiana. The Flight Readiness Review for this first Ariane-5 mission (Ariane 501/Cluster) took place on 19 and 20 February at the CNES facilities in Evry, France. After detailed examination of the configuration and the quality of the hardware items making up the launcher, and with due regard to the status of current activities, the Review gave permission for the 501 launch campaign to start on 4 March. Provided all operations proceed smoothly, the target date for the launch is now set at 15 May 1996. The European Space Agency has delegated the management of its Ariane-5 programme to CNES, the French space agency. SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-063.04 EUROMIR 95 MISSION ENDS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.04 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-063.04 Astronaut Reiter lands, ending longest ESA manned mission The record-breaking six-month EUROMIR 95 mission of ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter came to an end February 29th with the successful landing of the Soyuz TM-22 spacecraft. Thomas Reiter and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Avdeev have been aboard the Mir space station since September 1995. The highlights of the mission included the first spacewalks by an ESA astronaut, a docking by the space shuttle Atlantis and extensive scientific research. The EUROMIR missions are an important step for international cooperation in view of ESA's participation in the International Space Station program. Reiter and his Russian crewmates landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 13:42 Moscow time). Their capsule touched down about 107 kilometres northeast of Arkalyk. Recovery teams were quickly at the scene and the three men are reported to be in good health. Reiter was greeted at the landing site by ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang, his backup and point of contact at mission control, Kaliningrad. ESA Director General Jean-Marie Luton and Director of ESA's Manned Space Flight and Microgravity Programme Jorg Feustel B­echl will welcome the crew on their arrival at Star City this evening. The Soyuz TM-22 crew bid farewell to their two-man relief crew, Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev, and undocked from Mir at 08h20 CET (10h20 Moscow time) . The craft's engines were fired at 10h47 CET (12h47 Moscow time) to begin the descent. After jettisoning the spacecraft's orbital and service modules, the Soyuz descent capsule reentered the atmosphere. The fall to earth was slowed by parachutes and a last-minute burst from the capsule's retro-rockets. Reiter, a 37 year-old German, has entered the record books as the first ESA astronaut to perform a spacewalk and the first European to make a second walk in space. At 180 days, his mission is the longest by a non-Russian. Reiter made his spacewalks on 20th September, 1995, and 8th February 1996. During the first walk, he mounted a European experiment, called European Science Exposure Facility (ESEF), to the exterior of the Spektr module. ESEF was designed to expose materials to space and capture man-made space debris and naturally occurring cosmic dust. On his second excursion into space, Reiter retrieved two of the experiment's cassettes. The Mir crew welcomed visitors to their orbital home when the space shuttle Atlantis (STS-74) came calling. The shuttle arrived at Mir on 15th November 1995 and spent three days docked with the station. Most of Reiter's time aboard the station was spent on an extensive programme of research devised by European scientists. The experiments spanned the fields of live sciences, astrophysics, material sciences and technology. ANS thanks Bernard Pidoux F6BVP for this information. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-063.05 AMSAT BULLETIN BOARD COORDINATOR RESIGNS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.05 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-063.05 AMSAT's Bulletin Board Coordinator, John Wisniowski N6DBF has announced that, because of new employment, he no longer has the free time that he once did. Because of this, he is no longer able to keep the AMSAT files up to date on a regular basis and advises that the OCA BBS should be dropped from the list of AMSAT bulletin boards and that he must resign as Bulletin Board Coordinator. John notes that, with the ever increasing use of the Internet to obtain up to date information, the AMSAT BBS Network may not be as important as it once was. He thanks all the SYSOP's for their many hours of service to their fellow ham's. President Bill Tynan W3XO expressed thanks to John for his work on behalf of AMSAT. /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-063.06 SATELLITE STATUS HR AMSAT NEWS SERVICE BULLETIN 063.06 FROM AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD March 3, 1996 TO ALL RADIO AMATEURS BT BID: $ANS-063.06 RS-10 Gary Rogers WA4YMZ counters the rumor that RS-10 has been having problems, He says that he likes to work the early morning passes (about 0900-1100UTC) and will often find himself in the middle of a passband that's empty except for his signal which sounds fine. What he has noticed, though, have been some difficulty on the evening passes where the signals are way down except for one or two loud signals that seem to say "HELLO TEST" etc. He notes that these signals are invariably about 5 times stronger than everyone else. He speculates that RS-10's problem may simply be overloading of the bird by folks that don't know better. WO-18 WEBERSAT (WO-18) is currently sending telemetry, photos, weekly whole orbit data (WOD), and light spectra of the Sun or Earth, on Mondays. The satellite's digipeater continues in operation using an uplink on 145.900 MHz. Using a terminal program connected to your TNC/PSK modem, try connecting to yourself using the following TNC command: cmd: c yourcall via weber-1 If you're successful, try a few CQs and see who is listening...Enjoy! Photo 10/14 of Southern Chad is the current image. It has very good contrast with very few clouds and land features clearly visible. Use WW1.3 to convert the photo to a GIF image, then use your favorite graphics program to size it, and adjust the contrast and brightness slightly. The satellite continues to have a weak and relatively steady tone of about 1200 Hz in the downlink signal, which can cause reception problems with some modems. If this problem occurs, a ground-based solution is to adjust the IF-shift of the receiver to suppress the carrier into the skirts of the IF filter. Night reception seems to be better than in the daytime. WOD collection and broadcast will adhere to the following schedule: 3 March/Week3: BCR, 21 22 29 2F 33 36 10 March/Week4: Temperatures and impact detector, Ch# 14 2F 30 35 3B 40 17 March/Week1: Array currents, Ch# 26 27 28 29 2A 2B This information come from Tom Davis, IK3WVJ through Space News. ANS thanks both for making it available. LU-19 Chuck, W9ODI reports that there is a corrupt directory header on the LUSAT OSCAR-19 satellite. The header belongs to file 48CD, dated 24-Dec-95. Corrupt directory headers cause confusion to groundstation software, such as PB, WiSP, and SatLink. A solution to the problem is to delete the PFHDIR.HOL file and request a new LUSAT directory when accessing the satellite. He cautions everyone to remember not to request a directory that goes back to 1995, or you may pick up the bad header again. This information is from W9ODI via SpaceNews. OSCAR-13 The latest Transponder Schedule for AOI-13 is as follows: N QST *** AO-13 TRANSPONDER SCHEDULE *** 1996 Jan 01 - Apr 01 Mode-B : MA 0 to MA 140 | *** P R O V I S I O N A L Mode-BS : MA 140 to MA 240 | Mode-B : MA 240 to MA 256 | Alon/Alat 220/0 Omnis : MA 250 to MA 140 | Move to attitude 180/0, Apr 01 Continuous up-to-date information about AO-13 operations is always available on the beacons, 145.812 MHz or 2400.664 MHz, in CW at 0 & 30 minutes past the hour, RTTY at 15 & 45 minutes past the hour and 400 bps PSK otherwise. These bulletins are also posted to Internet, ANS, Packet, PacSats etc, and many international newsletters. Internet users wanting the latest AO-13 information should always check: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/ http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ Telemetry is archived at: ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/telemetry/ The active command stations are listed below, and constructive feedback about operations is always welcome. Peter DB2OS @ DB0FC.#NDS.DEU.EU James G3RUH @ GB7DDX.#22.GBR.EU Graham VK5AGR They may also be reached via Internet (callsign@amsat.org) and KO-23. Please remember to state clearly a return address. This information comes from James Miller, G3RUH via SpaceNews operated by John A. Magliacane, KD2BD /EX