SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.01 SSETI Express Status AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.01 On Thursday, October 27, at 22:20 CEST SSETI Express went into a safe mode due to an undervoltage caused by battery charging problems. The operations team is working actively to resume nominal operations of the satellite and isreceiving tremendous help in the process from the amateur radio community. At the time of the anomaly many mission milestones had already successfully been met. Careful analysis of the data received, coupled with ground-based computer simulations and hardware tests, strongly support the proposed theory of a specific component failure in the excess power dissipation system. Ground-based hardware tests confirm the possibility of a further failure mode of the specific component, which would allow the batteries to charge and the spacecraft to operate once again. Testing is ongoing to ascertain the specific likelihood of this, and to investigate other possible alternative explanations. Given that the spacecraft is currently inoperable, the mission cannot continue as planned. It is therefore on indefinite "standby", pending the technical possibility of re-activation of the spacecraft. The team remain hopeful and vigilant. The primary groundstation and mission control centre are being configured for autonomous monitoring of the spacecraft, such that if it reactivates the team will be immediately alerted and ready to resume the mission. The educational goals of the mission continue to be met daily as we try to analyse and understand the events since the launch. Neil Melville - Project Manager [ANS thanks Neil Melville of the SSETI Project Team for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.02 AMSAT Journal submission AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.02 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.02 Everyone, Ed Long is appealing for articles for the next AMSAT Journal issue. The Sep/Oct issue has been at the printer for a while now and I'm working on the Nov/Dec issue. If you have something to contribute, hints and kinks, antenna you have found that actually works, how to build a satellite feed etc. or even an experience on one of the birds please submit it to Ed no later than Monday, November 21. That is slightly less than 3 weeks away. If you have something you would like to contribute, contact Ed and let him know that you're working on something. Thanks for all your support of the Journal and get busy!!! [ANS thanks Ed, WA4SWJ for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.03 Five Years of Ham Radio on the ISS AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.03 ==>HAM RADIO HAS ROLE IN FIVE YEARS OF CONTINUOUS ISS HUMAN HABITATION Five years ago this week, the International Space Station Expedition 1 crew of US astronaut and Expedition 1 Commander William "Shep" Shepherd, KD5GSL, and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, U5MIR, became the first humans to inhabit the ISS on a long-term basis. Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, who commands Expedition 12, the current ISS crew increment, took note of the occasion when he spoke with reporters this week. "We've done things that were just inconceivable 50 years ago," McArthur said. "I think that we have demonstrated that human beings can live and work in space, and, given the will, we can return to the moon not just to visit but to stay there permanently and in not-too-distant future, send people to Mars." Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, called the five-year milestone the first leg of a much longer journey "The experiences we're having on station with crews on long-duration missions are teaching us what it will take to send astronauts on longer missions to the moon and into the solar system," he said. It was on October 31, 2000, that a Russian Soyuz transporter carrying the ISS space pioneers blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and docked with the ISS November 2. At the time, Shepherd was only the second US astronaut to go into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle. Krikalev went on to serve as commander of the ISS Expedition 11 crew. Each of the 12 crews that have lived on the ISS to conduct assembly and research activities has included at least one US radio amateur. McArthur just this week completed the 200th successful Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group contact. Crews also have gone on the air to participate in such events as ARRL Field Day and scouting's Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) as well as to make casual QSOs. The Expedition 12 crew of McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev will remain on the ISS until next April. The initial ARISS gear already was aboard the space station by the time the first crew arrived. The Expedition 1 team installed and activated the VHF gear on FM voice and packet under the US call sign NA1SS and the Russian call sign RS0ISS. In late 2003, the ARISS program attained another milestone with the installation and checkout of the Phase 2 Amateur Radio gear. A Kenwood TM-D700E transceiver is at the heart of the Phase 2 station, located in the ISS Zvezda Service Module--the crew's living quarters. Crew members now routinely use the Phase 2 station to conduct ARISS school group contacts. ARISS is looking forward to activation of a Yaesu FT-100 HF/VHF/UHF transceiver and a slow-scan television (SSTV) system in the near future. NASA has been marking the fifth anniversary of continuous ISS human occupancy with special activities and has set up a special Web site . The largest and most complex spacecraft ever built, the ISS is the result of a 16-nation partnership led by the US. More ISS information and photos are on NASA's Space Station page. ARISS is an international educational outreach with US participation by ARRL, AMSAT and NASA.--some information from NASA [ANS thanks the ARRL Letter Vol. 24 No. 43 for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.04 AMSAT Store AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.04 The AMSAT store is open for business and is a great place to get AMSAT publications to learn more about a particular mode or satellite. There are items for sale for you to "show the colors" at your local club meeting. You can get the latest data on the satellite object you are most interested in. A perfect way to ensure your next idea of what satellite is put into orbit is to donate to a particular fund for it. You can even watch the fund grow into a sufficient launch campaign. [ANS thanks Bruce, KK5DO, AMSAT Store Manager, for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.05 AO-51 Schedule AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.05 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.05 The new schedule for AO-51 is posted on the AMSAT web site. It has a very interesting mode of ops coming up that you might find interesting - a VHF USB uplink Mode. The versatile satellite is proving that the planning before launch is paying off. [ANS thanks Kyle Yoksh, K0KN for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.06 ARISS Status - 31 October 2005 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.06 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.06 ARISS Status October 31, 2005 1. Tomioka Elementary School Contact Successful On October 24, Tomioka Elementary School of Urayasu in Urayasu City, Chiba, Japan had a successful contact with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR. Fourteen students asked one question each of the astronaut. Approximately 650 students, parents, teachers and other interested parties were present for the contact, as two television stations and ten newspapers covered the event. Audio and video of the contact are available on ARISS member Satoshi Yasuda’s website. See: http://jk1zrw.dyndns.org/tomioka.html.en 2. Upcoming School Contacts Kawachi Citizen's Committee for Youth in Miyoshi, Hiroshima, Japan has been approved for a direct contact on Thursday, November 3 at 07:44 UTC. A contact for Istituto Comprensivo F. Negri in Casale Monferrato, Italy, has been scheduled for a contact on Wednesday, November 9 at 10:28 UTC via the telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii. Furtherwick Park School in Canvey Island, Essex, United Kingdom, has been approved for an ARISS contact. It is scheduled for Wednesday, November 9, 2005 at 17:45 UTC, and will be direct via GB2FPS. 3. ARRL Article on Tomioka Contact ARRL covered the Tomioka Elementary School contact in the article, “New ISS Commander Delights Japanese Youngsters via Ham Radio.” See: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/10/27/4/?nc=1 4. Astronaut Training Astronauts Nicole Stott and Garrett Reisman wrapped up their amateur radio license training sessions on Wednesday, October 26. 5. Expedition 11 Crew Debrief The U.S. debrief session with Expedition 11 crew member John Phillips, KE5DRY, is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, November 8 at 4:00 pm ET. 6. NASA Night Article Pine Ridge Middle School, located in Naples, Florida, held a “NASA Night” on September 27 to educate parents, teachers and students about NASA programs. The Southgate Amateur Radio Club set up an amateur radio station at the school so that children could speak with and ask questions of NASA employees. An article covering the event has been posted to the club’s website. See: http://www.southgatearc.org/news/october2005/nasa_night.htm 7. SuitSat Status Progress 19P was launched on September 8, carrying the SuitSat hardware. The Russian EVA to deploy SuitSat has been tentatively scheduled for December 8, 2005. [ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-310.07 SuitSat Info Available on AMSAT.ORG Web AMSAT News Service Bulletin 310.07 >From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. November 6, 2005 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-310.07 Now is the time to begin preparing your amateur radio station to receive signals from SuitSat, the most unusual Amateur Radio satellite ever orbited. SuitSat amateur radio equipment will be installed inside a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit. It will become an independently orbiting satellite once it is deployed by the crew of the International Space Station during an extravehicular activity, tentatively planned around December 8, 2005. Interested amateur radio operators are invited to read the whole story on the web on AMSAT's front page, http://www.amsat.org. Follow the links to see the photos and video of this exciting new opportunity for amateur radio in space. [ANS thanks the ARISS and SuitSat project teams for the above information] /EX