ARISS International Teleconference
Tuesday, September 25, 2007, 11:15 UTC (7:15 am ET)
Participants:
Frank Bauer
Sergey Samburov
Rosalie White
Mark Steiner
Keigo Komuro
Masanobu Tsuji
Robin Haighton
Dave Larsen
Gaston Bertels
Lou McFadin
Keith Pugh
Carlos Eavis
Miles Mann
Carol Jackson
Tadeu Fernandes
Stefan Wagener
Kenneth Ransom
Mark Severance
Interpreter: Olga Frumkin
Not present:
Larry Agabekov
Ken Nichols
Bill Boston
Daniel Lamoureux
Ken Pulfer
Graham Shirville
ARISS I Agenda:
Administrative Session
Notes: Frank Bauer introduced Mark Severance, N5XWF, to the team. Mark works for NASA at JSC, and will be one of ARISS’ primary interfaces into the ISS Program Office. This interface is separate from the support we get from Kenneth Ransom.
Frank also introduced Stefan Wagener, VE4NSA, from Manitoba, Canada. He is becoming more involved in Canadian activities, including having his station become a telebridge station.
Frank congratulated Sergey Samburov and the whole Russian space program on 50 years of space operations following the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4. Sergey has been busy with this celebration of space and commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
1. ARISS-I Face to Face Meeting, Moscow, Status, Presenter: S. Samburov
The timing for this meeting appears to be settling into May 2008. Sergey is thinking perhaps May 6-8, but May 9 is a national holiday so that would be a hard cutoff for ending the meeting. The next 2 weeks, May 12 – 16 and May 19 – 23, are available, but the earlier week will find Moscow beautifully decorated for the holiday. Sergey is proposing 2 days at each of the following locations: Moscow, Korolev, Kaluga, and Star City. Sergey will need to understand how many people will be attending, so he can work out accommodations and transportation.
Frank asked the delegates to let Carol know which weeks they would be available so planning can begin.
2. Malaysian Space Participant status, Presenter: K. Ransom/S. Ponder
NASA has received requests for support for 5 school contacts for the time that the Malaysian cosmonaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, will be on the ISS. Sergey noted that he seemed to be very interested in amateur radio during his training, asking for times when he can do general amateur radio contacts.
3. Manitoba Telebridge Station, Presenter: R. Haighton/F. Bauer
The ARISS team will move ahead with establishing Stefan’s station as one of the international telebridge stations in the ARISS network
4. SuitSat-1 Certificates, Presenter: F. Bauer
The certificates are being produced at this point, and Frank anticipates being ready by the next international meeting.
5. New Business (administrative only)
a) Sergey Samburov will be in Canada soon, discussing possibilities of using amateur radio for a science experiment aimed at getting students interested in science and technology. He is interested in meeting with any Canadian ARISS team members who would be available and interested in talking with him.
b) Robin has been discussing with Stefan Wagener the possibility of Stefan taking over Robin’s responsibilities as Canadian delegate. Robin would like to stay involved, but at a lesser degree of involvement. With concurrence, Stefan would take over beginning Oct. 1, 2007. Stefan, a native of Germany, has been an amateur radio operator for over 20 years. He works for the Canadian government and is active in outreach activities.
Frank offered a warm welcome to Stefan, and expressed heartfelt thanks on his own part as well as the ARISS team to Robin for all of his extensive efforts on behalf of amateur radio for all these many years.
General Session
6. Kenwood D700 status, Presenter: K. Ransom/S. Ponder
Kenneth reported that the Kenwood is being left on by the crew, the packet system is operational, and many people are using it.
7. SuitSat-2 Status, Presenter: L. McFadin
The DSP board has been completed and is in testing. The IHU is in final design review. The RF module team has completed some preliminary designs, and will be meeting with the fabrication team. The prototypes of the control box assembly are being assembled by a Boy Scout group in Phoenix, Arizona as part of an outreach activity by the SuitSat team at Microchip. A clever design for the solar array mounting frames has been produced and is undergoing team review. In the next few weeks a test of the solar arrays with the charge control circuitry should be run. Sergey asked for a layout of the cameras, and Lou noted that this is in work. One will be inside the suit, and the other three will probably be mounted on the backpack.
The SuitSat team will shortly be gathering from the delegates the callsigns of people who have worked on amateur radio satellites from the past through today, with the intent of sending them down via CW in random order. A contest would be to see who could gather the most callsigns.
8. Columbus Module Status, Presenter: G. Bertels
Gaston reported that they can see the end of the tunnel: the three new antennas of series 4x have been fabricated and are being shipped to ESA’s test facility at EADS-Astrium near Munich, Germany. ESA intends to install the two ARISS antennas the week of Oct. 4. There still is need for funding to cover the additional costs of this latest set of fabrication and testing.
9. New business
None.
The next ARISS-I meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 16 at 11:15 UTC.
Respectfully submitted,
Mark Steiner, K3MS, for the ARISS Team