SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0318 * SpaceNews 18-Mar-96 * BID: $SPC0318 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY MARCH 18, 1996 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for unlimited free distribution. * CELESTIAL BBS UPDATE * ======================== Stephen L. Wilson, N9OTT reports that the Celestial World Wide Web URL is: http://www.grove.net/~tkelso * MIR NEWS * ============ The Mir #22 crew, as of 11-Mar-96, is busy getting use to their new environment and perparing for the arrival of the Shuttle Alantis, STS-76. The 2-meter station has been turned off since the first of the month. It is hoped that after the STS-76 Docking mission is over, that normal PMS activity will resume. Most of the Mir passes over the USA are currently during the early morning hours. The Mir Space station will be visible in the morning sky over the next few weeks. Please update your tracking programs, and look for Mir passes 30 to 120 minutes after before sunrise. Space Shuttle Alantis STS-76 will be docking with the Space Station Mir a few days after liftoff (launch of STS-76 scheduled for 21-Mar-96). This mission will last for approximately 9 days. The Shuttle will be docked to Mir for approximately 5 days. The best set of Keps to use to track Space Shuttle Alantis are the Keps for Mir. The orbit of the Mir Space station is very stable, Mir only drifts 30-60 seconds a week. The orbit of the Space Shuttle Alantis will be constantly changing until it docks with Mir. You can find Keps on most PBBS and via the Internet. Any keps for Mir less than a week old will be sufficient. Remember, only 1 station can connect to MIR's PMS (R0MIR-1) at a time, ALL others must wait. [Info via G. Miles Mann, WF1F (mann@pictel.com)] * STS-76 VISIBILITY * ===================== Richard Kramer reports that the last nighttime MIR rendezvous Shuttle launch was visible as far north as 30 miles south of Boston, Massachusettes. The view was brief but spectacular and would suggest that the effort required to watch the launch (weather permitting) is well worth it. It was particularly incredible to watch the launch live on the NASA TV channel and then step outside and see the vehicle streak by, close to the horizon just a few minutes later. (Make sure you keep the TV dimmed down to preserve your night vision). * STS-76 SAREX NEWS * ===================== The STS-76 SAREX mission is currently scheduled for March 21st, with launch at 3:35 AM EST (0835 UTC). It will use the SAREX-M configuration (e.g. voice only using the VHF transceiver that is also used to talk to Mir). The crew are: CDR Kevin Chilton TBD PLT Rick Seafross KC5CKM MS1 Ron Sega KC5ETH MS2 Rich Clifford N0CAL MS3 Linda Godwin N5RAX MS4 Shannon Lucid TBD Kevin Chilton reported that he just took his test (and passed) and Shannon Lucid is interested in getting her license. She and her husband are planning on taking the Technician test before the launch. The three previously licensed astronauts got their tickets for several different previous SAREX flights. Linda Godwin got her Technician license in 1990 (now a Tech Plus) for the STS-37 mission and also used SAREX on her second shuttle flight, STS-59. Rick Seafross got his license for the STS-58 mission in October 1993. Ron Sega got his license for the STS-60 mission in February 1994. Kevin Chilton did not have his license for the STS-59 SAREX flight, but did use the transceiver for an educational contact. Last December, Linda Godwin married fellow astronaut Steve Nagel N5RAW, making the couple the first married astronaut ham couple. The crew will have their preflight press conference on March 12th at 1530 UTC, and this will be carried on NASA Television. NASA Television carried on Spacenet 2, Transponder 5, Channel 9 at 69 degrees West longitude. The transponder frequency is 3880 MHz and the audio subcarrier is 6.8 MHz. Polarization is horizontal. [Info via Philip Chien] * STS-76 ELEMENT SET * ====================== The following is a pre-launch Keplerian element data set for STS-76: STS-76 1 99976U 96081.38742082 .00020093 16712-8 12081-4 0 17 2 99976 51.6455 203.9666 0076991 3.1580 185.7961 16.10725400 13 Satellite: STS-76 Catalog number: 99976 Epoch time: 96081.38742082 Element set: 1 Inclination: 51.6455 deg RA of node: 203.9666 deg Eccentricity: 0.0076991 Arg of perigee: 3.1580 deg Mean anomaly: 185.7961 deg Mean motion: 16.10725400 rev/day Decay rate: 2.00933e-04 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 1 [Info via Gary Morris, KK6YB] * LUSAT-OSCAR-19 NEWS * ======================= The fileserver on LUSAT-OSCAR-19 has been re-opened and is functioning normally once again. * 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 SpaceNews is available every week on Usenet in the rec.radio.info, rec.radio.amateur.misc, and sci.space.news newsgroups, and on packet radio BBSs worldwide as well as the AMSAT-OSCAR-16 satellite. 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