ARISS International Teleconference

Tuesday February 22, 2005 12:30 UTC (7:30 am ET).

Participants:

Rosalie White

Larry Agabekov

Sergej Samburov

Keigo Komuro

Masanobu Tsuji

Gaston Bertels

Lou McFadin

Mark Steiner

Mark Spencer

Daniel Lamoureux

Ken Pulfer

Tadeu Fernandes

Ken Nichols

Miles Mann

Carol Jackson

Keith Pugh

Harold Kramer

Scott Stevens

Interpreter, Mikhail Malyshau

Unable to Attend:

Robin Haighton

Frank Bauer

Scott Anderson

Dave Larsen

Bill Boston

Kenneth Ransom

Erika Vick

ARISS I Agenda:

Notes: Rosalie introduced the ARRL Chief Operating Officer, Harold Kramer, WJ1B. He is Rosalie’s boss, and is interested in finding out what is going on in ARISS.

Frank Bauer is absent due to the flu.

Administrative Session

1. ISS Link Status--Voice over Internet (Including IRLP & Echolink), Presenter: F. Bauer

Scott Stevens noted that the IRLP and Echolink teams are working together to try to provide both services for school contacts, as well as exploring Skype as a means of distribution.

Rosalie noted that Frank will cover any other ideas he had via email or at next month’s meeting.

2. Future U.S. School Group Applications, Presenters: R. White, F. Bauer

Each region gets an equal share of school QSOs, although at some point the US hopes to get a higher percentage (the delegates approved this previously) to help with the very old US backlog. Some US schools have waited 4 and 5 years for a QSO. The US has many ideas on how to deal with the increasing backlog, and with NASA's approval, a new plan should be worked out in the next two months. The US plan may become the test bed for upcoming years when other ARISS regions develop a backlog of school applications. Sergej asked if there is now an agreement between NASA and ARRL/AMSAT; Rosalie reported that there was one for SAREX, and a draft one for ARISS. The draft ARISS agreement, which is waiting on a review by NASA HQ lawyers, is on the agenda for the March meeting at NASA HQ that Rosalie and Frank will attend. Sergej requested a report on the number of schools, annually, that have been serviced.

3. New Business (administrative only)

Gaston: AMSAT-France has a request for operators on small islands and other remote locations to be able to use the ISS voice repeater for longer distance contacts. Mark Steiner stated that the current plan is to time-share the modes, with the goal of operating multiple stations with different modes at the same time as capabilities are increased. Miles feels that 1200bd digipeating is no longer as popular, and it would make more sense to just be in FM repeater mode for the next 6 months. Sergej stated that perhaps having 2 schools talk to each other over the FM repeater might help reduce the backlog. There are many possibilities.

It was suggested that email would be a good venue to further this discussion, and that this section of the minutes would be a good way to start the discussion on ARISS-I.

General Session

4. Suitsat Status, Including Recent Houston Technical Interchange Meeting, Presenters: F. Bauer, L. McFadin, S. Samburov

Sergej was not able to travel to Houston, but participated via telecon and emails. We were able to see the Orlan suit in person. A draft protocol has captured the technical agreements made, and much progress was made in defining the system. The team is pursuing a plan to have the system ready for the first available launch opportunity. There remain many questions between NASA and the Russian Space Agency regarding the whole project, including safety concerns.

Although the path to launch is not yet clear, the work done last week will be usable in the future for ARISS and other amateur satellite design efforts.

5. How will the SuitSat project affect the SpaceCam SSTV project? Will SuitSat cause any delays in any of the previously planned projects? Presenter: M. Mann

Miles is concerned that many smaller projects such as SuitSat might negatively impact getting SpaceCam on orbit. Mark Steiner and Sergej Samburov noted that there are other factors involved, such as getting a dedicated computer, launch manifests, etc., that have delayed SpaceCam.

6. New business

It has been requested that info on SuitSat be put on an ARISS webpage when it is available.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Steiner, K3MS for the ARISS Team