SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-177.01 ARISS Status - June 20, 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 177.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. June 26, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-177.01 1. Canadian School Contact Successful On Friday, June 17, fifteen students from Ecole De la Source, an elementary school in Mascouche, Quebec, Canada, spoke to John Phillips, KE5DRY, via ham radio. Fifteen questions were asked of the astronaut as an audience of approximately 400 students, parents, and dignitaries, assembled in the gymnasium, watched via a video link. Two national television stations and one newspaper covered the event. 2. Upcoming School Contacts The Mayborn Museum at Baylor University in Waco, Texas has been approved for a contact via the telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii. It will take place on Monday, June 27 at 16:05 UTC. 3. Article on Australian School Contact On Thursday, June 2, students from Brigidine College in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia spoke to John Phillips, KE5DRY. An article was written and posted on the school's website. See: http://www.bcr.randwick.syd.catholic.edu.au/home/space/ 4. SuitSat Educational Project Status Approximately 200 pieces of artwork have been submitted for the SuitSat DVDs. It has been noted that Space Camp Turkey, a participant of two ARISS contacts in the past, sent in their own artwork, taking advantage of yet another ARISS opportunity. 5. ARISS Software Sergey Samburov sent to Kenneth Ransom a CD containing Kenwood operations, SSTV instructions, and other software programs. The U.S. team will review the contents and provide updates for the software, as needed. Once finalized, the CD will be sent to the ISS on a future Progress flight. Mark Steiner contacted QRZ and received an update to the callsign database. The new database will be shipped to Houston along with the SuitSat Educational Project CDs, and will be included in the Progress 19P manifest. 6. News of SuitSat Spreads The ARRL has been fielding questions from reporters about SuitSat, and has prepared a story for their own Web site. On June 15, Space.com ran an article entitled, "Old Spacesuit, New Satellite." See: http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html On June 16, WFMY News 2 also ran an article on SuitSat. See: http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/technology/tech_article.aspx?storyid=42975 ARRL's own article, "Fall Launch Viewed for 'SuitSat' as ARISS-US Delivers Hardware," can be found at: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/06/17/2/?nc=1 7. Astronaut Training Astronaut John Grunsfeld is tentatively scheduled to attend an ARISS operations overview session on Friday, July 8. Grunsfeld is the backup for Expedition 13. 8. ARRL Article on ISS Participation in Field Day John Phillips, KE5DRY, and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, may participate in Field Day on June 25 - 26. The ARRL article, "ISS Astronauts Could Be on the Air for Field Day!" includes pass times when the Expedition 11 crew may be available for a contact. See: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/06/15/2/?nc=1 9. ARRL Article on John Phillips Astronaut John Phillips spoke to members of Congress about what living on the ISS means in terms of future exploration plans. On June 15, the ARRL covered this story in the article, "Ham-Astronaut testifies before Congress from space." See: http://www.arrl.org/ [ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-177.02 One Year Anniversary of Echo AMSAT News Service Bulletin 177.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. June 26, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-177.02 June 29th will mark the 1-year anniversary of the Launch of Echo. On June 29, 2004, Echo, now AO-51, was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on top of a Dnepr launch vehicle. Echo was one of 8 satellites which were placed into Sun Synchronous Orbit during this launch. After approximately a month of commissioning and testing, the satellite was placed into amateur radio service. Much more information about the history of Echo is available in Gould Smith's (WA4SXM) book, "AO-51 Development, Operations, and Specifications," available from AMSAT-NA. I hope everyone has enjoyed the first year of Echo's in-orbit life, the wide variety of modes and experiments that have been operated to date on the satellite, and are looking forward to many more opportunities with Echo in the years ahead. If you use and enjoy Echo please consider joining AMSAT-NA, or your Country's AMSAT organization. It is one way that we can continue to do what we enjoy; make contacts via Amateur Radio Satellites. [ANS thanks Mike, KE4AZN for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-177.03 Symposium Registration Now Online AMSAT News Service Bulletin 177.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. June 26, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-177.03 Registration for the 2005 AMSAT Space Symposium is now available on-line. The Symposium will be held October 7-9 at the Holiday Inn Holidome in downtown Lafayette, LA. Information can be found on the Symposium web page at: http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/ In addition to downloading the registration form, for the first time attendees can now register online through the AMSAT store. Registration forms will also be mailed out with the annual ballots for the AMSAT board of directors. Please see the AMSAT Store registration for more information: http://www.amsat-na.com/SymposiumReg.php Registration for the Annual Banquet, the Friday Night Shrimp Boil and the Sunday Swamp Tour can all be done at the time you register for the Symposium. [ANS thanks Emily, W0EEC for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-177.04 SSETI Express to Leave Cleanroom AMSAT News Service Bulletin 177.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. June 26, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-177.04 The SSETI Express flight model is expected to be fully completed before the end of this week and will then be taken out from the cleanroom and packed for dispatch to the launch site at Plesestk. This means that the webcam pictures at http://sseti.gte.tuwien.ac.at/WSW4/webcam.htm will be almost the last ones available before launch. Presently they are updated every 5 minutes. SSETI Express is scheduled for launch on Aug 25th and after initial telemetry and telecommand operations is expected to provide a U/S FM transponder in the amateur satellite service. More details of the launch, the telemetry formats, frequencies and available software will be made available over the forthcoming days/weeks prior to launch. ESA (and AMSAT-UK) really hope that as many amateurs around the world as possible will be willing to download the telemetry (9k6 on 437 MHz and 38k4 on 2.4 GHz), decode it and forward it to the SSETI Control Station over the internet. This opportunity to participate will enable us to show that the amateur satellite service groundstation network is a viable system for such short term projects. This in turn will encourage them and possibly other launch agencies to actively consider incorporating amateur transponder equipment in their future projects! [ANS thanks Graham, G3VZV for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-177.05 2006 Slate of BOD Candidates AMSAT News Service Bulletin 177.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. June 26, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-177.05 Nominations for the position of Director for AMSAT, Inc. closed on June 15th. The list of qualified candidates are: Barry Baines WD4ASW Emily Clark W0EEC Richard M. Hambly W2GPS Bob McGwier N4HY Gunther Meisse W8GSM Bruce Paige KK5DO Lee McLamb KU4OS Greg Wycoff N0ZHE Ballot cards will be mailed to members on or about July 15th, and are due in the AMSAT Office no later than September 15th. [ANS thanks Steve, W4EPI for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-177.06 AMSAT Awards AMSAT News Service Bulletin 177.06 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. June 26, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-177.06 This week, congrats go out to all of the following. All one of them. David Bird, KC7USS, 51 on 51 Award #28 Who will earn 51 on 51 Award #100? Remember, this award is only available until December 31, 2005. To see all the awards visit http://www.amsat.org or http://www.amsatnet.com [ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO for the above information] /EX