ARISS International Teleconference

Tuesday January 30, 2007 12:15 UTC (7:15 am ET)

Participants:

Frank Bauer

Rosalie White

Mark Steiner

Larry Agabekov

Masanobu Tsuji

Keigo Komuro

Robin Haighton

Dave Larsen

Daniel Lamoureux

Ken Nichols

Gaston Bertels

Lou McFadin

Keith Pugh

Carlos Eavis

Graham Shirville

Ken Pulfer

Carol Jackson

Kenneth Ransom

Matt Keil

Miles Mann

Not present:

Tadeu Fernandes

Sergey Samburov

Bill Boston

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative Session

Frank welcomed everyone to the teleconference and wished everyone a happy and healthy New Year. We are excited about Sunita Williams working so many schools.

1. New Business (administrative only) – None

General Session

2. Ericsson/Kenwood Status, Presenter: K. Ransom

(Kenneth will be leaving early for a crew simulation, ISS Ham’s first such session.) Kenwood is working well enough in manual mode for school contacts, but there is not much activity beyond them. The Ericsson radio is awaiting troubleshooting to determine cause of recent anomalies.

3. SuitSat-1 Certificates, Presenter: F. Bauer

Frank has been too busy with his NASA duties (an extreme amount of overtime) to finish this up, and apologizes. He will have Carol Jackson email out the current version for input from the ARISS international team. Please note that the NASA-centric logos will be changed in the next revision, so please concentrate on the layout and photos.

4. Dice-K Enomoto licensing status, Presenter: K. Komuro

Dice-K is the Japanese civilian going to ISS on a future Soyuz taxi mission. He was not cleared for flight late in the process, and Anousheh Ansari took his place. He will be re-evaluated in August 2007. The Japanese team was not initially able to get him licensed due to his tight training schedule. Keigo recently emailed Dice-K, asking him about getting his amateur radio license, but has not yet received a reply. The Japanese team is still working on getting an opportunity to get Dice-K his license.

5. SuitSat-2 Status, Presenter: L. McFadin

The team has made a great deal of progress, getting schematics and design plans together on the charging circuit, SDR (software defined radio), a prototype of the main controller board, and other items. A frequency coordination request for the IARU is being prepared, with a tentative frequency plan under final review. The team is anticipating getting some solar panels from NASA, which should extend the operational lifetime of the powered operations.

Rosalie reported on the education side that lesson plans are in work. The SuitSat website is back up with preliminary information on SuitSat 2. The team is working on a press release and the student permission slips.

6. Columbus Module Status, Presenter: G. Bertels

Work continues in Poland on the design, manufacture, and ultimately the testing of the new antennas. A problem exists with a US company adding on surcharges for the small orders that they are placing, but Tim Bosma is trying to improve that situation. The team is hoping to apply the silicon oxide coating in Poland, but may ask Goddard for assistance. Gaston is looking to get the work done by the summer of 2007, with an anticipated launch in October or November.

Gaston is trying to facilitate the coordination of the antenna installation on the Columbus module at KSC, and is looking for contacts at KSC who would be able to help the EADS personnel coordinate antenna installation. Lou will help get AMSAT folks at KSC in contact with Gaston.

7. New business

Miles requested feedback on his email to the ARISS-I team at the end of December that was asking about hardware status and repair plans. Frank replied that the US team has worked out repair plans, but that we are still working with the Russians to try to get the repair plans in place. Unfortunately the ISS Ham radio repair is very low priority for the ISS team. Miles is concerned that there is no one autonomous system available for regular use by the general ham public. Frank noted that we need to take into consideration the need for very little crew interaction for future designs. Also, the computer to be dedicated to packet operations and Kenwood programming has not yet been launched. Updates will be shared with Miles and all of the team so that updates can be shared with the general ham population. This is also a tough time for NASA, given the continued focus on Exploration, the Fiscal Year 2007 budget problems, and the extensive Shuttle flight and construction EVA schedule. It is a good thing that we are an international team, as we have been able to work things from different countries’ perspectives. We need to keep leveraging the assets from our broad support base from all our countries.

Frank recognizes the level of frustration developing in the amateur radio community, and that we have to continue to work the issues and communicate with them.

General comments:

Gaston will be attending Tomas Reiter’s mission debrief, and will be presenting him his operations certificates. He will also be setting up an ARISS/AMSAT exhibition for the European Union Parliament, entitled “Amateur Radio, a European Resource.”

Frank wanted to note that Charles Simonyi received his amateur radio license to be used on his taxi flight to the ISS in the April timeframe, and wants to do several school contacts. The US team is working to get him interested in doing general contacts as well.

The next scheduled international team telecon is scheduled for February 20, 2007.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Steiner, K3MS, for the ARISS Team