SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-243.01 AMSAT-NA President's Reminder AMSAT News Service Bulletin 243.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. August 28, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-243.01 As we approach September, I issue this "Annual Reminder" for various AMSAT Activities. If you Plan coming to the Annual Meeting and Space Symposium the remember our block of Reserved Rooms is no longer available after SEPTEMBER 17. The current rate of exchange is about $1.00 Cdn=$0.71 US. Thus the rooms advertised as $119 Cdn+Tax are about $84.50 +Tax. Also, if you register with Martha before September 15th then your registration fee is only $30 US. After September 15, it rises to $35 US and at the door $40 US or 57Cdn. The Saturday evening Dinner Price is fixed at $35 US, however I am pleased to advise that we have received the generous donation of a new ICOM 910H Satellite radio as our Grand Prize which will be drawn form all of the tickets for those who register. - Wow- Many other valuable prizes have also been donated, including Hardware, Software, and Gift Certificates. As you are aware this year we will welcome at least 2 and maybe more new members, of the Board of Directors. How many new ones depends on your votes, there are 4 places available and 8 candidates. So keep your votes rolling into Silver Spring, keep the Corporate Secretary (Martha) busy counting them, remember if you don't vote, then don't grumble about BoD actions. It's your organization so vote for your choice of candidates. As we have over 4500 Members I would like to find out how high Martha can count! All ballots must be received by the close of Business on September 15. 73, Robin Haighton, VE3FRH President, AMSAT-NA [ANS thanks Robin, VE3FRH, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-243.02 VUSat Update AMSAT News Service Bulletin 243.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. August 28, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-243.02 VUSat is a 40Kg micro-satellite to be launched onboard PSLV(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) from Sriharikota launch range. It will be a co-passenger along with another remote sensing satellite (most likely IRS-P6) to be launched on the same vehicle It is cubical in structure of about 630mm x 630mm x 550mm size. It has body-mounted solar panels on the four sides. Antennae for communication are mounted on the top, the bottom portion interfaces with the launcher. VUSat is a spinning satellite in a synchronous polar orbit of about 917Km (LEO) The bus electronics performs the functions of attitude control, telemetry, telecommand and data acquisition and is controlled by a single microprocessor. Satellite Telecommand(TC) and Telemetry(TM) are on the VHF band VUSAT PAYLOAD :: There will be two transponders: Indian and Dutch as main and redundant systems. Both of them will be operating in Mode-B configuration with UHF uplink and VHF downlink. This mode is also known as U-V operation. They are linear transponders designated to operate in CW/USB/FM modes of amateur communication. Since they are linear transponders they may be tried in other modes of operation too. They will have an output power of about 30dBm(=1Watt) They will share common turnstile antennae for input and output along with satellite mainframe TC/TM systems Typical link calculations are as below: 1) UHF uplink (435.25MHz centre frequency) Ground station power : 40dBm (10Watts) Antenna gain : 12 - 18 dBi EIRP at max.ant.gain : 56dBm 2)VHF down link (145.90MHz centre frequency) Antenna gain: 16dBi Received carrier power(at gnd.RX) : -107dBm(1uV) Notes: Both the transponders will have 60KHz bandwidth Transponders may be differentiated by their respective beacons; Indian transponder will have an unmodulated carrier on 145.940MHz whereas the Dutch transponder will have modulated information on 145.860MHz Satellite will have a periodicity of about 7000 secs and is likely to be visible for about 10-12mins. maximum during a good pass. Like any other LEO satellite, daily we may expect 3-4 good passes. Flight versions of The Dutch (by Williams, PE1RAH) and Indian transponders were tested "on-the-air" on 27 August 2003. Both the transponders worked satisfactorily in CW/SSB/FM of mode-B (UV) operation. Hams VU2LX, VU2POP, VU2IR, VU2WMY/URC participated in this important test and gave reports. With this testing the packages are ready to go on to VUSat deck. Current news and additional information is available at the AMSAT-India web site. http://www.amsat-india.org [ANS thanks Nagesh, VU2NUD, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-243.03 CCARC VHF AMSAT Satellite net AMSAT News Service Bulletin 243.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. August 28, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-243.03 The weekly Cowley County Amateur Radio Club in Winfield, KS,. CCARC VHF AMSAT Satellite net meets each Sunday evening at 8:00 p.m. local time on the 145.190- repeater. On 24 August 2003, NCS was Greg, N0ZHE. There was 11 check-ins to the net, with SAT OPS reporting 35 contact made through the week of 18-24 August, Satellites reported worked was AO-7 and AO-40 SAT OPS reporting this week was: John KA0OXY, Bill W0OQC, Greg N0ZHE DX contacts reported off AO-40 into the following countries: Russia Indonesia Italy Mali Germany Czech Rep. Netherlands France Sicily Island Other topics talked about on the net ranged from: UO-14 UO-22 ISS AO-40 mods done on Grid dishes for operating on AO-40. Bill W0OQC going to start working on his 7.5ft dish for AO-40. design for a harness for the 14 element cross arrow antenna. the new FEC program for coping tlm off AO-40. For more information on our local VHF AMSAT satellite net check out: http://www.havilandtelco.com/~gregwycoff/chat.htm [ANS thanks Greg, N0ZHE, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-243.04 AO-40 DX Update AMSAT News Service Bulletin 243.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. August 28, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-243.04 The following AO40 DX operations planned for the near future: V31KD (Belize) August 30-31 by Jim Huhta AA4MD. KH2GR (Guam) September 5-8 by Yoshi JF6BCC C3/EB4AFK (Andorra) September 6-7 by Jose EB4AFK Also, for those who haven't noticed, Dave, EI4HT, is now quite active on AO40. Wayne, W9AE, adds, "I wish I could be home to work Andorra because that would be a "new one" for me. Nowadays there is so much DX activity on AO40 that it's almost impossible to take a long vacation without missing something!" [ANS thanks Wayne, W9AE, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-243.05 Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule AMSAT News Service Bulletin 243.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. August 28, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-243.05 Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule as of 2003-08-27 04:00 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 webpages 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. ISS Expedition 7 crew: Ed Lu KC5WKJ Yuri Malenchenko RK3DUP Tentative cutoff day for ARISS contacts with Expedition 7 is 2003-09-20 Next up Expedition 8 crew: Mike Foale KB5UAC Alexander Kaleri U8MIR Tentative schedule: 2003-10-18 Soyuz launch 2003-10-20 dock 2003-10-28 undock Incarnate Word Academy Houston, TX Contact is a go Thursday 2003-08-28 18:58 UTC at 81 degrees Boulder High School Contact is a go for Wed 2003-09-03 16:10 UTC (***) Cornell University Contact is a go Thu 2003-09-04 13:40 UTC Kagawa Junior High School, Ube City, Japan TBD direct via 8N4ISS (***) Webster High School, Webster, N.Y. TBD UTC Stanford University Palo Alto Gunn High School, California TBD UTC Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawaii TBD UTC Verbum Casa das Palabras Vigo Spain TBD UTC with Pedro Duque Ceip Seixalbo school Ourense, Spain TBD UTC with Pedro Duque Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee, Tallahassee, FL TBD UTC (Contact was not completed) The latest ARISS announcement and successful school list is now available on the ARISS web site. Several ways to get there. Latest ARISS announcements and news http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt Successful school list http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/Successful_ARISS_schools.rtf or http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov If you can not get into the GSFC site, then go directly to the RAC site. (***) click on English (sorry I don't know French) you are now at http://www.rac.ca/ariss/ click on News Currently the ARISS operations team has a list of over 60 schools that we hope will be able to have a contact during 2003. 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, AJ9N, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-243.06 This Week's News in Brief AMSAT News Service Bulletin 243.06 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. August 28, 2003 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-243.06 ** At 09:51 universal time (UT) on August 27th, Earth made its closest approach to Mars in nearly 60,000 years. The two worlds, center-to-center, were just 56 million kilometers apart--a short distance on the scale of the solar system. The last people to come so close to Mars were Neanderthals. --SpaceDaily ** The Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) spacecraft, recently completed design certification review for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) program. The OSP is a NASA initiative to develop a crew rescue and transfer vehicle for the International Space station. --SpaceDaily ** Boeing has successfully launched NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility, or SIRTF, aboard a Delta II Heavy launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Liftoff occurred on 19 August 2003 at 0535 UTC from Space Launch Complex 17B. Telemetry data indicated that the launch vehicle successfully deployed SIRTF to a solar orbit. --SpaceDaily ** Maxwell's Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM) -- the highest performance memory component available to the space market -- uses Rad-Stak technology, making it the first component to be hermetic and completely radiation shielded in a vertically stacked package subject to full MIL-STD-883 qualification and characterization . --SpaceDaily ** The third flight of the Boeing Delta IV successfully deployed the U.S. Air Force's Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) spacecraft, DSCS III B6. The Delta IV Medium launch vehicle carrying DSCS III B6 lifted off at 2313 UTC on 29 August 2003 from Space Launch Complex 37B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Approximately 42 minutes after liftoff, the Delta IV delivered the communications satellite to a geosynchronous transfer bit. --SpaceDaily /EX