SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.01 AO-40 UPDATE AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.01 Schedule ====== As of September 9, the AO-40 operating schedule has been updated as below. The beacon off / on time for eclipse has been moved again slightly. It is now off at MA = 50 and back on at MA = 106 N QST AMSAT AO-40 S2 Downlink @=RUDAK OFF 2002-09-07 MA 020 050 106 OFF@ 216 240 020 ---------7-----4-----1-----3-----5-----0-----7 MB | * | | * | | * | * | RUDAK | | | | * | | | V-Rx | | | | * | | * | U-Rx | * | * | * | | * | | Passband | | | UL | | UL | | *** RUDAK has been discontinued until conditions improve. *** Attitude 2002-09-03 ============== The estimated attitude is now approximately ALON/ALAT ~ 45/2. This approximate attitude will be held until 2002-09-18. [ANS thanks Stacey, W4SM, for the above information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.02 AO-7 SIGHTED OPTICALLY AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.02 AO-7 was sighted optically from Holland, MI (EN62), Sept. 5, 2002 between 01:29 - 01:33 UTC. The instrument used was a Meade ETX-70 telescope, 70mm objective lens, 350mm fl and 14x magnification. AO-7 was first sighted at about 35 deg. elevation and tracked to about 80 deg. elevation. Unfortunately, the telescope got confused when AO-7 neared the zenith and stopped tracking. This was a 89 deg. pass. It was much brighter than expected, 8-7 magnitude, very tiny and star-like at first, white in color, but was brightening to near 6th magnitude when the telescope stopped tracking it. [ANS thanks Armando, N8IGJ, for the above information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.03 ARISS CONTACT SCHEDULE AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.03 Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2002-09-02 20:00 UTC The ARISS (a joint effort of AMSAT, the ARRL, NASA, the ARISS international partners including Canada, Russia, the European Partners, and Japan) operations team wishes to announce the following very tentative schedule for ARISS school contacts. This schedule is very fluid and may change at the last minute. Remember that amateur radio use on the ISS is considered secondary. Please check the various AMSAT and ARISS web pages for the latest announcements. Changes from the last announcement are noted with (***). Also, please check MSNBC.com for possible live retransmissions (http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default.asp). Listen for the ISS on the downlink of 145.80 MHz. For information about educational materials available from ISS partner space Agencies, please refer to links on the ARISS Frequently Asked Questions page. If you are interested in supporting an ARISS contact, then you must fill in an application. The ARISS operations mentor team will not accept a direct request to support an ARISS contact. You should also note that many schools think that they can request a specific date and time. It does not work that way. Once an application has been accepted, the ARISS mentors will work with the school to determine a mutually agreeable date. Web sites that may be of interest include: http://www.arrl.org/sarex http://www.arrl.org/ariss http://www.amsat.org http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov http://spacelink.nasa.gov/index.html http://ehb2.gsfc.nasa.gov/edcats/educator_guide/ Your completely filled out application should be returned to the nearest coordinating ARISS region if your specific region is not listed. E-mail is the preferred method of submitting an application. Here are the email addresses: ARISS-Canada and all other countries not covered: ve2ka@rac.ca (Daniel Lamoureux VE2KA) ARISS-Europe: jh.hahn@gmx.net (J. Hahn, DL3LUM / PA1MUC) ARISS-Japan and all Region 3 countries: iaru-r3@jarl.or.jp (Keigo Komuro JA1KAB) ARISS-Russia: n2ww@attbi.com (Valerie Agabekov N2WW/UA6HZ) ARISS-USA: ARISS@arrl.org (The American Radio Relay League) ISS Expedition 5 crew: Peggy Whitson KC5ZTD Sergei Treschev RZ3FU Valeri Korzun RZ3FK Mikve Israel School/ Givatayim Space Observatory, Israel direct via 4Z4SAT Contact was successful at 2002-09-02 10:00 UTC (***) Congratulations Givatayim and Peggy Whitson (***) Jamboree Station, The Netherlands, PI4RIS TBD Glen Waverley Secondary College, Melbourne Australia, VK3BPU Option 1: Thursday 2002-09-12 10:50 UTC Option 2: Friday 2002-09-13 09:50 UTC Whitson Crew Pick, Martensdale - St. Mary's School, Martensdale, IA Option #1 2002-09-19 16:30 UTC via ZS6BTD Option #2 2002-09-19 17:18 UTC via WH6PN Option #3 2002-09-16 18:35 UTC via WH6PN Whitson Crew Pick, Silver Hills Middle School, Fairplay, CO Week of 2002-09-16 TBD Whitson Crew Pick, St. Mark's Lutheran School, Hacienda Heights, CA Week of 2002-09-16 TBD Joamie Ilniarvik, Iqualuit, Nunavut, Canada Week of 2002-09-23 TBD Whitson Crew Pick, Spruce Hill Christian School (K-8), Philadelphia, PA Week 2002-09-30 TBD Lamar Elementary (was Travis), Greenville, Texas TBD Frank De Winne Crew Pick, Euro Space Center, Transinne, Belgium, direct via ON4ESC or Telebridge TBD Frank De Winne Crew Pick, Royal Technical School Belgian Air Force, Sint Truiden, Belgium Direct via ON4BAF TBD Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, Chicago, Illinois direct via AJ9N TBD Look for possible live streaming video, the website is http://www.adlerplanetarium.org Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, WV Telebridge TBD The latest ARISS announcement and successful school list in now available on the ARISS web site. Several ways to get there. http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov click on English (sorry I don't know French) you are now at http://www.rac.ca/ariss.htm click on News Currently the ARISS operations team has a list of over 40 schools that we hope will be able to have a contact during 2002. As the schedule becomes more solidified, we will be letting everyone know. Current plans call for an average of one scheduled school contact per week. [ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, for the above information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.04 ARISS SCHOOL CONTACT AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.04 Congratulations to Peggy Whitson operating NA1SS on the ISS and W9AB at Stanley Clark School in South Bend, Indiana on their just completed ARISS contact. The contact was started about 15 to 30 seconds after AOS and ended about predicted LOS. Approximately 3 minutes from the end there was some QRM from a local paging service so you might have heard some dropout. 15 Questions were asked. In the audience were some 200 students and about 50 adults. Two of the South Bend TV stations were also there. Thank you MSNBC.com for providing live audio of the contact. [ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, for the above information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.05 IPS PROGRAMMING PAGE ADDED TO AMSAT-NA WEB SITE AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.05 The OSCAR-40 satellite, like its predecessors P3A, OSCAR-10, and OSCAR-13, has as its "brains" a computer system based on the RCA COSMAC 1802 microprocessor. The computer is running an operating system called IPS (Interpreter for Process Structures), and loaded into that environment is the flight software that does spacecraft command and control, housekeeping chores, battery charge control, navigation, transponder switching, beacon data generation, and so on. Work is currently underway to develop a custom processor (currently code named the Am1601). This processor will be optimized for the IPS operating system and will be used in the flight computer for the new AMSAT-NA "Eagle" satellite, and may be used for the proposed AMSAT-DL P3E and P5A satellites as well. IPS was devised by Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, at a time when 1802, 6502, 6800 and 8080/Z80 processors were state of the art -- around 1976-1979. At that time there just wasn't an easy-to-use, robust, engineering-oriented, multitasking and, above all, portable operating system for cheap computers based on these CPUs and their tiny (boldly described as "massive") 16 kilobyte memories. Computers at that time meant the Atari 800, North Star Horizon, etc. IPS is a brilliant piece of software engineering, as relevant today as it ever was. But how many people know anything about IPS? Not many nowadays. Here's an opportunity to discover all about it, with a book and IPS emulators for DOS and Windows. For more details see: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/ao40/ips.html [ANS thanks Paul VP9MU for the above information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.06 FINAL TWO HAM ANTENNAS INSTALLED ABOARD SPACE STATION AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.06 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.06 The last two Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) antennas were installed last week during a space walk. The installation wraps up work that began last January when the first two of the four Italian-designed antennas were attached to the ISS exterior. During the second of two space walks this month, two members of the Expedition 5 crew attached essentially identical VHF-UHF flexible-tape antennas to the ISS Service Module on August 26. Installation of the new ARISS antennas on the Zvezda Service Module--the crew's living quarters--makes possible two separate ham stations aboard the orbiting outpost--one for VHF operation, the other for UHF (70 cm). Similar flexible-tape antennas for VHF-UHF and for HF were installed during January space walks by the Expedition 4 crew, although there is not yet any HF gear aboard the ISS. The newest two VHF-UHF flexible tape antennas--designated WA1 and WA2--were installed along the perimeter of the aft end of the Zvezda Service Module, near the Soyuz docking port. Frank Bauer, the ARISS Chairman, provided additional details of the new antennas. Frank said, "There are 4 antennas on ISS. Each of these antennas support multi-band operation. Actually 3 of the 4 antennas are identical. Each of these antennas can support 2 meter, 70 cm, L band, and S band transmit and receive. They also support reception of GPS and the Russian Glisser EVA TV system. On the fourth antenna, the 2 meter/70 cm whip is replaced with a 2.5 meter long whip (vertical). This antenna will support HF operations, particularly 10 meters." Frank continues with an overview of future plans for ARISS radio install- ation, "Right now we could support 70 cm operation using the Ericsson radio. We are still waiting for the Russians to certify the use of this equipment with the new antennas. In the near future (Phase 2), we will have a dual-band 2 meter/70 cm radio along with the 70 cm radio. When these two systems are installed, we probably will hook one up to WA1 and the other to WA2. These are the two downward facing antennas. For a while, each radio system will use a separate antenna system. When we add additional equipment, we will evaluate the antenna uses. For now, we don't have any L band or S band equipment under development, but several ideas are in the works. And, of course, HF operations will use the WA4 (HF) antenna." The International ARISS team have worked quite hard to bring these antennas to fruition. The Russian provided the feed throughs and supported the EVAs. The US team did the hardware integration and certification. The Italian team, U.S. team and Russian team all developed portions of the hardware. [ANS thanks The ARRL Letter Vol. 21, No. 34 and Frank Bauer for the above information.] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-251.07 NEWS IN BRIEF FOR THIS WEEK AMSAT News Service Bulletin 251.07 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. SEPTEMBER 8, 2002 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-251.07 ** The AMSAT office will be closed all week between September 9 through September 13. It will re-open on Monday, September 16. -- Martha ** UO-11's VHF beacon has been heard once again. Paul KK5ET reports he copied the 2M Downlink: 145.826 MHz FM (1200-baud AFSK) on orbit #99162 between 21:25 - 21:38 UTC pass on September 4, 2002. He says it was a good strong signal (S3-5). -- Paul KK5ET ** TransOrbital, Inc. has become the first private company in the history of space flight to win approval from the U.S. government to explore, photograph, and land on the moon. The company expects to launch its Trailblazer Mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan within the next 9-12 months. --SpaceDaily ** Researchers have shown how tiny wires and metallic spheres might be arranged in various shapes to form "nanoantennas" that dramatically increase the precision of medical diagnostic imaging and devices that detect chemical and biological warfare agents. --SpaceDaily ** Not a free ride. Russia shot down the space-travel dreams of US boy band heartthrob Lance Bass on Tuesday, calling off his trip to the International Space Station because he could not afford the 20-million- dollar ticket for the flight. --SpaceDaily ** China's manned space program will move ahead later this year or early next year When the two test dummies blast off into space on Shenzhou-4 (SZ-4). They will continue the role of their predecessors in the testing of the critical life protection and related subsystems on the manned spacecraft. -- SpaceDaily /EX