SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0309 * SpaceNews 09-Mar-98 * BID: $SPC0309 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY MARCH 9, 1998 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use. * HAM RADIO AND AMSAT FEATURED IN NY TIMES * ============================================ AMSAT-NA Executive Vice President Keith Baker, KB1SF, has reported that AMSAT is included in a feature article about Amateur Radio and the Internet in the Thursday, March 5th edition of the New York Times newspaper. The article, written by John Verity, a New York Times feature writer, is contained in a recently added section of the paper called "Circuits". The story examines the links between the Amateur Radio hobby and the Internet, and how Amateur Radio and AMSAT have both expanded and exploited those links over the years. The AMSAT-NA Web Site http://www.amsat.org was included along with others as a source of information on the amateur radio satellites. "Mr. Verity and I spent a few hours on the telephone talking about the continuing magic of Amateur Radio and what AMSAT has done to spark new ways of telecommunication over the years", said Keith. Keith is shown operating on the satellites from his "shack" in one of the two photos included with the story. Keith reports that Mr. Verity was quite impressed with the ease with which we regularly communicate through our fleet of AMSAT satellites. "He was most impressed with the fact that we can, for example, communicate via one of our MICROSATS using nothing more sophisticated than a low powered hand-held radio and a flexible antenna," said Keith. "The carpenter's rule antenna material we regularly use aboard our satellites also caught his attention," he said. Says Keith, "Needless to say, this story is great publicity for AMSAT and for Amateur Radio as a whole. If it sparks enough interest in just one youngster to become a Ham then it was well worth the effort!" [Info via the AMSAT-NA News Service] * MIR APRS EXPERIMENT * ======================= The MIREX (Mir International Amateur Radio Experiment) team would like to announce an Automatic Packet/Positioning Reporting System (APRS) test that is scheduled for 10-Mar-98 beginning at 1455 UTC and lasting through 1651 UTC. APRS stations will be allowed to use the Digital Repeater (R0MIR) on the Russian Mir Packet Station during the period of this experiment, which will cover approximately 99% of the USA on two orbits of Mir. MIREX hopes that schools will be able to take part in the experiment by logging into one of the APRS Web sites (www.aprs.net) to track APRS beacons across the US. Hams are also encouraged to set up packet stations at schools to allow students and educators to witness the experiment first-hand. The Mir PMS frequency is currently 145.985 FM simplex. The Mir Digital Repeater callsign is R0MIR. After 10-Mar-98 @ 1651 UTC, APRS should NOT be used via Mir. A recent 2-line Keplerian data set for use in tracking Mir follows: Mir 1 16609U 86017A 98063.08565753 .00008828 00000-0 10311-3 0 3011 2 16609 51.6575 217.9855 0005337 84.5056 275.6535 15.62474297687614 [Info via Dr. Dave Larsen, N6CO] * EVIDENCE OF ICE DISCOVERED ON MOON * ====================================== There is a high probability that water ice exists at both the north and south poles of the Moon, according to initial scientific data returned by NASA's Lunar Prospector. Just two months after the launch of the cylindrical spacecraft, mission scientists have solid evidence of the existence of lunar water ice, including estimates of its volume, location and distribution. "We are elated at the performance of the spacecraft and its scientific payload, as well as the resulting quality and magnitude of information about the Moon that we already have been able to extract," said Dr. Alan Binder, Lunar Prospector Principal Investigator from the Lunar Research Institute, Gilroy, CA. The presence of water ice at both lunar poles is strongly indicated by data from the spacecraft's neutron spectrometer instrument, according to mission scientists. Graphs of data ratios from the neutron spectrometer "reveal distinctive 3.4 percent and 2.2 percent dips in the relevant curves over the northern and southern polar regions, respectively," Binder said. This is the kind of data 'signature' one would expect to find if water ice is present." However, the Moon's water ice is not concentrated in polar ice sheets, mission scientists cautioned. "While the evidence of water ice is quite strong, the water 'signal' itself is relatively weak," said Dr. William Feldman, co-investigator and spectrometer specialist at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM. "Our data are consistent with the presence of water ice in very low concentrations across a significant number of craters." Using models based on other Lunar Prospector data, Binder and Feldman predict that water ice is confined to the polar regions and exists at only a 0.3 percent to 1 percent mixing ratio in combination with the Moon's rocky soil, or regolith. Assuming a water ice depth of about a foot and a half (0.5 meters), the depth to which the neutron spectrometer's signal can penetrate, Binder and Feldman estimate that the data are equivalent to an overall range of 11 million to 330 million tons (10-300 million metric tons) of lunar water ice, depending upon the assumptions of the model used. This quantity is dispersed over 3,600 to 18,000 square miles (10,000-50,000 square kilometers) of water ice-bearing deposits across the northern pole, and an additional 1,800 to 7,200 square miles (5,000-20,000 square kilometers) across the southern polar region. Furthermore, twice as much of the water ice mixture was detected by Lunar Prospector at the Moon's north pole as at the south. "This finding by Lunar Prospector is primarily of scientific interest at this time, with implications for the rate and importance of cometary impacts in the history and evolution of the Solar System," said Dr. Wesley Huntress, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science. "A cost-effective method to mine the water crystals from within this large volume of soil would have to be developed if it were to become a real resource for drinking water or as the basic components of rocket fuel to support any future human explorers." Lunar Prospector is scheduled to continue its current primary data gathering mission at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) for a period of ten more months. At that time, the spacecraft will be put into an orbit as low as six miles (10 kilometers) so that its suite of science instruments can collect data at much finer resolution in support of more detailed scientific studies. In addition, surface composition and structure information developed from data returned by the spacecraft's Gamma Ray Spectrometer instrument will be a crucial aspect of additional analysis of the polar water ice finding over the coming months. [Info via NASA Press Release 98-38] * 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