SB SAREX @ AMSAT $STS-70.003
SAREX Update & Keps 7/15

Silver Spring, MD
July 15, 1995 at 02:00 UTC

The Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment came alive today with a very successful
check pass on orbit 17.  During the test pass, volunteers at the Johnson
Space Center Amateur Radio Club station, W5RRR, made contact with the crew 
as
the shuttle orbited over Houston, Texas. Astronaut Don Thomas, KC5FVF said
"Tell everyone hello and thanks to all of the SAREX volunteers, who are 
doing
really great work!" Don began calling CQ right after the test pass and began 

working other stations on voice.  The SAREX team have had several reports 
that
the crew has also been active on packet using the call sign W5RRR-1.

Later in the day, on orbit 22, the crew had a very successful school group
contact with students at the Collegio San Nicolas in Venado Tuerto, 
Argentina.
The students got to ask 21 questions to astronaut Don Thomas during their
horizon to horizon SAREX pass.  Over 200 people participated in the event
which was covered by 4 nationwide television stations and 25 print media
organizations.

With the successful Argentina contact complete, this clears the planned 
backup
telebridge time for a potential general QSO opportunity.  While the SAREX
Working Group cannot guarantee that the astronauts will be available, there
is a high probability that there could be a voice or packet opportunity for
US hams on orbit 32.  The backup contact was orginally planned to begin at
a Mission Elasped Time of 1 day 22 hours and 42 minutes or at 12:23 UTC
on Saturday July 15.

The following represents the latest Keplerian element set as generated by
Gill Carman, WA5NOM at the Johnson Space Center.

STS-70
1 23612U 95035A   95195.81651499  .00025000  00000-0  18713-3 0    56
2 23612  28.4627 317.7506 0021414 150.7002 209.4850 15.90210846   218

Satellite: STS-70
Catalog number: 23612
Epoch time:      95195.81651499   =    (14-Jul-95   19:35:46.89 UTC)
Element set:     005
Inclination:       28.4627 deg
RA of node:       317.7506 deg            Space Shuttle Flight STS-70
Eccentricity:     .0021414               Keplerian element set JSC-005
Arg of perigee:   150.7002 deg        from flight Day  2 post OMS-4 vector
Mean anomaly:     209.4850 deg
Mean motion:   15.90210846 rev/day                Gil Carman
Decay rate:     2.5000e-04 rev/day^2       NASA Johnson Space Center
Epoch rev:              21
Checksum:              265

Bob Inderbitzen, N1QR from the ARRL contributed to some of this bulletin.

Submitted by Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO for the SAREX Working Group

/EX