SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-149.01 ARISS Status - May 23, 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 149.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. May 29, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-149.01 1. New York School Contact Successful On Monday, May 16, students from Iroquois Middle School in Niskayuna, New York spoke with John Phillips, KE5DRY, via the telebridge station, VK5ZAI, in Australia, with the teleconferencing link donated by MCI. Paul Manning, a seventh grader at the school, and nephew of Phillips, was among the twelve students who asked 18 questions of the astronaut. The contact was broadcast live by the in-school television station, WIRO. It was rebroadcast the following day for the rest of the student body. In all, approximately 700 students, teachers, and visitors observed the event. John Phillips' brother and sister-in-law attended, as did the television stations FOX23 and Time Warner Channel 9. Both stations covered the event and ran stories on the local news. The Spotlight, a local newspaper, followed up on Tuesday and interviewed the students. The audio for this event was available on the internet and fed through Echolink and IRLP nodes. Echolink had seventy-eight connections, which included 22 simplex and 12 repeater nodes and 2 conference servers. Thailand, South Africa, Russia, Romania, and Italy were among the ten countries listening in. Twenty-one IRLP nodes were connected to the Discovery Reflector 9010. Countries that participated included the USA, Canada, Norway, Germany, England and Australia. One IRLP connection was made by Central Middle School, an inner city school located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where twenty-four students and four teachers were amazed as they listened to the ARISS question and answer session. 2. Upcoming School Contacts Brigidine College in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia has been scheduled for a contact on Thursday, June 2, at 09:30 UTC. The audio will be fed through the Echolink AMSAT (101377) and EDU_NET (77992) servers and IRLP Reflector 9010. It will also be available on the internet. To join the event, go to: URL: https://e-meetings.mci.com/ CONFERENCE NUMBER: 7535482 PASSCODE: SPACE STATIO 3. Japanese School Contact Hosokawa Junior High School, in Ikeda, Osaka, Japan experienced an ARISS contact on Monday, May 9. ARRL covered the event in an article entitled, "Japanese Junior High Students Take "Giant Step" via Ham Radio." See: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/05/17/3/?nc=1 4. ARISS International Teleconference Held The monthly ARISS International Meeting was held on Tuesday, May 17. Agenda items discussed included the ARISS face to face meeting in the U.K., to be held August 1 & 2, third party traffic issues, the SuitSat Educational Proposal, and the possibility of an ARISS contact with a school in Bejiing during the 2008 Olympics. 5. SuitSat Educational Proposal The SuitSat Educational Proposal was discussed and finalized during the ARISS international teleconference. On Wednesday, May 18, the proposal was released to the international delegates and to the NASA Education Office for distribution to schools worldwide. It has also been posted on the ARISS website at: http://www.rac.ca/ariss/suitsat.htm and to the AMSAT server at: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/Papers/School%20Spacewalk%20Suitsat%20Final.doc 6. Dayton Hamvention 2005 The Dayton Hamvention 2005 was held this past weekend, May 20 - 22. AMSAT and ARRL both had exhibition booths at the event, which draws crowds of 25,000 annually. ARISS delegate Rosalie White, K1STO, gave a talk on ARISS at the Dayton ARRL Expo, and accompanied inactive astronaut Tony England to the AMSAT dinner where he gave a talk on space and youth. ARISS Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, and ISS Ham Deputy Program Manager Mark Steiner, K3MS, attended and gave a presentation entitled, "Human Spaceflight Update: ARISS, the Moon and Mars." See: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/Presentations/Dayton%202005.pdf 7. Columbus Module An Amateur Radio station will be located on the European Space Module, Columbus. ARISS patch antennas, covering UHF, L-band, and S-band, will be installed on the nadir of Columbus. ESA has agreed to cover the installation cost of 100,000 euros. ARISS will need to pay 40,000 euros by mid June for development and manufacturing costs, with another 40,000 euros due by year's end. ARISS-Europe has extended a call for donations, and the progress can be followed on the ARISS-Europe website. See: www.ariss-eu.org/columbus.htm 8. Astronaut Training On May 16, Kenneth Ransom of JSC provided ARISS training to astronaut Dan Tani. He discussed school operations, packet capabilities, and cross band repeater mode, as well as Field Day. Tani is tentatively scheduled to fly in the spring of 2006 as a crew member of Expedition 13. 9. Field Day Kenneth Ransom has invited Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, and John Phillips, KE5DRY, to participate in Field Day. This ARRL event is held annually the fourth full weekend of June. This year it will be held on June 25 - 26, beginning at 1800 UTC Saturday and ending at 2100 UTC Sunday. 10. School Selection Committee Meeting Held The Educational Outreach/School Selection Committee Meeting was held on May 12, 2005. The minutes have been posted to the ARISS website. See: http://www.rac.ca/ariss/arissschm.htm [ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-149.02 Bangalore, India Students On Hamsat AMSAT News Service Bulletin 149.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. May 29, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-149.02 On 17th May, International Telecommunications Day, the Little Lillys English School, Bangalore during the Hamsat's 10:54 hours pass, spoke to other hams in the country from their club station VU3LLE. A School made 18 element arrow antenna was used for the ground station. Pics, sound and movie clips are posted at www.amsatindia.com. I am sure such activities will pique the young minds. Hamsat is really bringing space science right into the classrooms. [ANS thanks R. Ramesh, VU2RMS for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-149.03 OSCAR-11 Report - 25 May 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 149.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. May 29, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-149.03 This report covers the period 18 April to 24 May 2005. OSCAR-11 resumed transmissions on April 28, after its ten day period of silence. The telemetry showed that ALL the analogue channels were zero, although the status channels were normal. The on-board clock was five hours slow. Signals were fairly good, although at the present time, I cannot track the satellite accurately owing to a stuck elevation rotator! Good signals were also received on 30 April, with all the telemetry channels showing zero values. The on-board clock was 4.45 hours slow. Sometime between 30 April and 02 May the satellite switched OFF. This coincided with the start of the solar eclipse season, which started on 27 April, reaching 10% of the orbit time by 02 May. Nothing heard on 18 May when the satellite might have been expected to resume transmissions. However, on 19 May Gustavo LW2DTZ (located near Buenos Aries) reported hearing good signals at 22:11 UTC. Many thanks Gustavo for that report. It is possible that the satellite may still be controlled by the watchdog timer, 10.3 days ON followed by 10.4 days OFF. Perhaps the eclipses may cause the satellite to switch OFF early, after a day or two, when the battery voltage is too low to operate the system. If this theory is correct, the satellite might resume transmissions around 08 June, for a day or two. Commands from ground control could also affect operation times. The solar eclipses should reach maximum duration of 23% orbit time in mid-June. The eclipses should finish in mid-August, when the satellite enters a period of continuous sunlight for the remainder of the year. Any reception reports would be appreciated. Please send to me direct g3cwv@amsat.org, or post to post to AMSAT-BB. The Beacon frequencies are - VHF 145.826 MHz. AFSK FM ASCII Telemetry - Occasional operation? UHF 435.025 MHz. OFF S-band 2401.5 MHz. OFF Here is a sample frame of telemetry from the 05:46 pass on Thursday 28th. UOSAT-2 0505024014454 000000010001020002030003040004050005060006070007080008090009 100001110000120003130002140005150004160007170006180009190008 20000221000322000023000124000625000726000427000528000A29000B 30000331000232000133000034000735000636000537000438000B39000A 40000441000542000643000744000045000146000247000348000C49000D 50000551000452000753000654000155000056000357000258000D59000C 60800E615FC1620141633341644402651E0C6630A967000168000E69000F Listeners to OSCAR-11 may be interested in visiting my web site. This contains an archive of telemetry data, including all the data received for 2005. The web site contains details about using a soundcard for data capture, and also details about using hardware demodulators. There is software for capturing data, and decoding ASCII telemetry. The URL is: http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/ If you place this bulletin on a terrestrial packet network, please use the bulletin identifier $BID:U2RPT109.CWV, to prevent duplication. [ANS thanks Clive, G3CWV for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-149.04 AMSAT Board of Directors Nominations AMSAT News Service Bulletin 149.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. May 29, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-149.04 The deadline for nominations for the open Board of Director positions is rapidly approaching. Written nominations must be received by June 15th. Nominations must be in writing, email is not an option. Please mail your nominations to Martha Saragovitz in the Silver Spring, Maryland office. Regards, Stephen Diggs AMSAT Corporate Secretary [ANS thanks Steve, W4EPI for the above information] /EX