SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0602 * SpaceNews 02-Jun-97 * BID: $SPC0602 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY JUNE 2, 1997 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use. * PHOTOS OF MIR AND SHUTTLE AVAILABLE * ======================================= Maury (i121171@amsat.org) reports that three interesting images of the Mir and Space Shuttle from mission STS-84 are available on the Web at the following URL: http://www-dx.deis.unibo.it/htdx/ * KB5UAC ACTIVE FROM MIR * ========================== Many reports have been received indicating that Astronaut Mike Foale, KB5UAC has been quite active on 2-meters (145.200 MHz up, 145.800 MHz down) as R0MIR from the Mir space station. There has been no word as to when the packet station or the SAFEX module will be re-activated. * AMSAT FEATURE ARTICLE * ========================= The AMSAT Website now has a new "feature article" available. The article on P3D "P3D-What's in it for Me?" covers the features of the satellite and its benefits to the amateur community at large. The article is by Andrew Skattebo, KA0SNL, and may be accessed at the following URL: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/features/ka0snl/p3d1.html [Info via Andrew Skattebo, KA0SNL] * PHASE 3D RUDAK NEWS * ======================= Bdale Garbee reports that last weekend (which was the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the US) the P3D RUDAK team met at his house in Colorado to work on bringing up the SCOS operating system, and to test as much of the flight and flight backup hardware as possible. The group got started on Thursday afternoon after Robert Diersing's arrival. Lyle Johnson and Harold Price flew home early on Tuesday morning. In attendance all or part of the time were the following: John Conner, WD0FHG Robert Diersing, N5AHD Bdale Garbee, N3EUA Chuck Green, N0ADI Lyle Johnson, WA7GXD Harold Price, NK6K Jim White, WD0E The group extends its profuse thanks to Karen Garbee, N1FED, for keeping everyone well-fed, and for putting up with the distruption of normal activities in Bdale's house all weekend. The group made *significant* progress. The operating system kernel and the device drivers needed for communication with the ground through the modems are now running. The flight hardware has undergone initial testing in fully-integrated form. Modifications made to an engineering CPU board during the operating system port are being made by N0ADI to the flight hardware this week, with more testing to follow. The team still has lots of work to do, but they have now passed some very important milestones. Lyle brought along his digital camera, and Bdale put a new set of pictures (9 of them, this time) on AMSAT-NA's Phase 3D Web Page at the following URL: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/phase3d/rudak-u/ [Info via Bdale Garbee, N3EUA] * UO-22 SOFTWARE RELOAD * ========================= The UO-22 OBC186 flight software was reportedly reloaded on Friday during a morning passes over Surrey. It is hoped that this reload will fix the problem with uploads being rejected. Should the upload take longer than anticipated, users are asked not to transmit to the spacecraft until it is opened for operations as such activity will slow down the reload process. [Info via Chris Jackson, G7UPN / ZL2TPO] * RS-10 PROBLEM * ================= For reasons that still remain a mystery, the RS-10 satellite has gone silent. Users around the world report the loss of both beacon and transponder downlink signals from RS-10. Updates on this situation will be reported once official word from the spacecraft controllers is received. * 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: The first amateur newsletter read in space! -=>> /EX