ARISS International Teleconference

Tuesday, October 24, 2006 11:00 UTC (7:00 am ET)

Participants:

Frank Bauer

Rosalie White

Mark Steiner

Sergey Samburov

Larry Agabekov

Masanobu Tsuji

Keigo Komuro

Robin Haighton

Dave Larsen

Daniel Lamoureux

Ken Nichols

Gaston Bertels

Lou McFadin

Keith Pugh

Miles Mann

Ken Pulfer

Carol Jackson

Kenneth Ransom

Interpreter: Tatyana Preiser

Not present:

Tadeu Fernandes

Graham Shirville

Carlos Eavis

Bill Boston

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative Session

1. San Francisco meeting, Presenter: F. Bauer

Frank noted that he continues to be impressed with the high performance level of this international team. Even though we have differences of opinion, we are able to discuss the issues openly and we listen to each other.

Having Bill McArthur at the meeting was very worthwhile, helpful, and productive.

We met with, and listened to, the representative of our new ARISS sponsor, Cindy McArthur, of the Johnson Space Center Education Office. Ed Pritchard and Cindy McArthur are the two new points of contact for ARISS.

Rosalie and Carol should have the minutes out for review shortly.

2. New Business (administrative only)

Gaston has received a draft copy of the Amateur Radio Hardware and Operations Panel (ARHOP) international document being developed by Carlos Fontanot/JSC. The intent is to formalize the multi-lateral agreement between all the ISS participating partner agencies regarding Amateur Radio on the ISS (ARISS). It will outline the top-level roles and responsibilities for the development and operation of amateur radio on the ISS, as well as resources to be expended on the program. Frank is glad to hear that the document is finally going out for review from NASA to the other agencies.

General Session

3. Kenwood Status, Presenter: K. Ransom

The ISS is quiet right now as the Kenwood is still in an off-nominal configuration, preventing autonomous operations. The current agreed-to plan by the Russian and US teams is to perform a reset back to the launch parameters. There are procedures onboard to prepare the radio manually for upcoming school contacts.

4. Crew Debrief, Presenter: S. Samburov

The crew reported that the equipment was working fairly well. Pavel reported on the need to have a dedicated computer. Pavel also talked about the importance of amateur radio for crew psychological support and for exciting school children about technology. He mentioned his difficulties in getting the SSTV system working as well as the importance of ultimately having it onboard and operational.

Anousheh talked about the importance of ham radio for spaceflight participants.

5. New business

Frank noted that Sergey will be traveling to NASA-Johnson Space Center to meet with the US training team, along with people from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

Gaston spent some time recently with members of the Portuguese amateur radio organization AMRAD (formerly AMSAT-Portugal), and there is the possibility of holding a future ARISS International Partners meeting in Portugal. They are also pursuing a terrestrial contact between Brazilian Marcos Pontes and a school in Portugal.

The next ARISS telecon will be Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at 12:00 UTC (note the time change).

 Respectfully submitted,

Mark Steiner, K3MS, for the ARISS Team