SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-057.01 Cute Sat 1.7 Launched AMSAT News Service Bulletin 057.01 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. February 26, 2006 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-057.01 CUTE SAT 1.7 has been launched and has been heard on the air by various stations throughout the world. Information available at: http://lss.mes.titech.ac.jp/ssp/cute1.7 It will have uplink packet capability on 1.2ghz and 144mhz with downlink data on 437mhz. More info is available on the website. The downlink for CW Beacon is 437.385. Listen fot it! [ANS thanks the LSS team for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-057.02 SuitSat Gone? AMSAT News Service Bulletin 057.02 >From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. February 26, 2006 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-057.02 As it become certain that SuitSat-1 had reached the end of its mission, Frank, KA3HDO, who is AMSAT-VP for Human Spaceflight Programs, as well as the ARISS International Chairman wrote an extensive summary of the exciting worldwide teaching and learning opportunity. Frank said, "SuitSat-1/Radioskaf/AO-54 the mission that has captured the imagination of people and students around the world---is now a confirmed silent key. The outreach, press requests and visibility of SuitSat was absolutely amazing and appears to be unprecedented for a ham radio event. While the press requests are just now starting to wane, we expect that you will continue to see SuitSat status reports and pictures in magazines, websites and other literature over the next few months. The last confirmed reception of the SuitSat voice audio was on Saturday, February 18 by Bob King's station, VE6BLD in Canada. The last confirmed telemetry was received by Richard Crow's station, N2SPI in the USA. Richard copied the SuitSat-1 voltage dropping precipitously to a low of 18.3 volts before vehicle stopped transmitting. A graphic representation of Richard's telemetry data showing the battery voltage can be seen at http://www.amsat.org. While the transmission part of the SuitSat experiment was not stellar, SuitSat-1 has been tremendously successful in several areas. Some of these successes include: - We captured the imagination of students and the general public worldwide through this unique experiment. - The media attention to the SuitSat project was tremendous. - We have had well over 9 million internet hits at http://www.suitsat.org. - Our student's creative artwork, signatures and voices have been carried in space and are on-board the spacesuit---the students are now space travelers in the Suit as it circles the Earth. This was a collaboration with the NASA Explorer Schools. - The ARISS international team was able to fabricate, test and deliver a safe ham radio system to the ISS team 3 weeks after the international space agencies agreed to allow SuitSat to happen. This was a tremen- dous feat in of itself. And most importantly, - We successfully deployed an amateur radio satellite in a Spacesuit from the ISS, demonstrating to the space agencies that this can be safely done. This engineering accomplishment will open new opportunities for small, low cost satellites in the future. The AMSAT/ARISS team have been talking about a SuitSat-2. Correcting the signal strength issue would be a top priority for this flight. So would be a longer term power generation device, like solar arrays. As our thoughts mature on this, we will keep you informed of our plans. SuitSat-1/Radioskaf/AO-54 represented a space pioneering effort. While we did not have total success, we captured the imagination of students and the general public worldwide. And we have learned a lot from this activity. This will help us and others grow from this experience. On behalf of the AMSAT, ARISS and SuitSat teams, I thank you all for your help, encouragement and advice." 73, Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO AMSAT-VP for Human Spaceflight Programs ARISS International Chairman [ANS thanks ARISS for the above adventure] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-057.03 AMSAT Newsreel Update AMSAT News Service Bulletin 057.03 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. February 26, 2006 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-057.03 On the AMSAT website http://www.amsat.org. , there is a section where you can see video newsreels of events and items of interest. They are very well produced and professionaly put together. The latest one for February 2006 can be seen from the AMSAT website. Plan on taking a look and updating your facts about AMSAT. There are some very interesting talks and ideas for presentations to all AMSAT members and the area coordinators. [ANS thanks Don, WB5EKU for the above information] /EX SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-057.04 ARISS Status - 20 February 2006 AMSAT News Service Bulletin 057.04 From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD. February 26, 2006 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-057.04 ARISS Status February 20, 2006 1. Australia Contact Successful On February 17, students at the Cosmos Centre Charleville in Charleville, Australia experienced a successful ARISS contact with Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, via the telebridge station WH6PN in Hawaii. Eight children asked 17 questions of the astronaut as an audience of 50 looked on. The event was covered by Southern Cross TV, the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) which was broadcast nationwide, and the local media. The audio was webcast, courtesy of Verizon Conferencing, and was fed through the EchoLink AMSAT (node 101 377) and JK1ZRW (node 277 208) conference rooms. Twenty-one connections were made to Echolink from the following countries: Australia, Japan, Russia, USA, UK, Netherlands, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, and Thailand. Five stations from Canada, Australia and Japan made connections to IRLP Discovery Reflector 9010 and the audio was also streamed on www.discoveryreflector.ca 2. Engineering Day Contact Successful On Saturday, February 18, sixteen children attending the Discover Engineering Family Day made contact with the Space Station via the telebridge station, WH6PN, in Hawaii. Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, answered 16 questions. Prior to the event, the ARISS contact was publicized in the Weekend edition of the Washington Post newspaper and was described on many of the local TV broadcast channels. Approximately 7000 people attended the event held in the National Building Museum. The contact audio was webcast and was fed through the Echolink AMSAT (node 101 377) and JK1ZEW (node 277 208) conference rooms and the IRLP Discovery Reflector 9010. Eighteen connections were made to Echolink from the USA, Canada, the UK, Columbia, Japan, and the Czech Republic. In addition to the contact, a team of volunteers from AMSAT supported the ARISS booth the entire day of the Engineering Family Day function. The team provided a hands-on view of the ham radio equipment used on ISS, provided updates on the SuitSat project, and handed out information on ham radio and the ARISS program to children and their parents and guardians. 3. SuitSat Status SuitSat was last heard from on Saturday, February 18 at 03:30 UTC. ARRL ran an article covering the satellite’s suspected demise entitled, “SuitSat-1 Battery Voltage May Be on Downward Slide.” See: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/02/17/5/?nc=1 4. News Article on Pine Ridge Contact Naples News covered the ARISS contact between Bill McArthur and the NASA Explorer Schools - Pine Ridge and Immokalee Middle Schools. The article, “Live from Space,” may be found at: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2006/feb/13/middle_school_students_chat_astronaut_he_orbits_ov/?local_news 5. ARRL Article on Dale High and DeGolyer Contacts ARRL wrote a web story covering the Dale High School and DeGolyer Elementary School contacts. To view, “Back-to-Back ARISS School Group QSOs Attest to Ambitious Contact Schedule,” see: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/02/16/1/?nc=1 6. ARRL Article on New Astronauts On February 15, ARRL ran a story entitled, “Several new astronauts are Amateur Radio licensees.” See: http://www.arrl.org/ 7. Astronaut Training Session A second Amateur Radio training session has been tentatively scheduled for the remaining 2004 astronaut class. The class is planned for Friday, February 24. Astronauts Randy Bresnik, Jim Dutton, Shane Kimbrough, Tom Marshburn, and Bobby Satcher will attend. Astronaut Chris Cassidy will be scheduled for his second session at a later date. [ANS thanks Carol, KB3LKI for the above information] /EX