ARISS International Teleconference

Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 12:15 UTC (7:15 am ET)

Participants:

Sergey Samburov

Rosalie White

Mark Steiner

Larry Agabekov

Keigo Komuro

Masanobu Tsuji

Gaston Bertels

Lou McFadin

Keith Pugh

Graham Shirville

Ken Pulfer

Carol Jackson

Daniel Lamoureux

Kenneth Ransom

Mark Severance

Interpreter, Olga Frumkin

Not Present:

Fabiano Moser

Carlos Eavis

Ken Nichols

Tadeu Fernandes

Tom Clark

Will Marchant

Maurice André Vigneault

Bill Boston

Ed Pritchard

David Jordan

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative Session

1. New business (administrative only)

New QSL cards: Rosalie White brought up a suggestion that was made by the European team to have a few blank boxes on the back of the new QSL cards for each region to use as they see fit. If there are no objections she would like to have that be the plan. No objections were raised in the telecon.

General Session

2. Columbus module status, Presenter: M. Severance

The AIS and ARISS antennas were installed during the last Shuttle flight. Both are roughly nadir facing, roughly 5 and 7 o’clock if 6 is nadir. As of this time Mark has not seen any video or images of the newly installed ham antenna on the outside of the Columbus module, but he hopes to find some from the Shuttle fly-around in the near future. He will send a drawing showing the layout when he returns to Houston.

The US team is in the process of deciding how best to convert the 120 V available in the Columbus module to the voltages needed by the various components of the ARISS radio systems. One option is to use one of the “bricks” already in use on the ISS, with another option being the development of our own power conversion box. Once the option is decided upon it will be run through the Project Selection and Use Committee. The US team is also looking into what certifications, including safety, need to be in place for moving one of the existing radio systems into the lab to begin operations. Mark and the rest of the US team have been working well with the ESA team during this entire process.

A question was raised regarding the identification during transmissions of which module is being used. Gaston asked the team to think about the regulatory considerations, if any, and have a discussion via email.

3. ARISSat-1 status, Presenter: L. McFadin

The flight module housings are at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center to be painted. The flight software modules have been completed to the point where a complete system test of the software on the flight hardware is planned for the near future.

The memory module (USB thumbdrive) that will hold all the files submitted by schools for flight will be physically mounted to the inside of the structure late in the preparation flow, and all inputs to it should be submitted by March 1, 2010.

Russian EVA-26 in October is the current target being planned for the launch of ARISSat-1. Mark Severance is working with Sergey Samburov and Alexander Kaleri to firm up the protocol between Energia management and NASA regarding ARISSat-1.

4. New business

None.

The next international partners meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday, January 19, 2010.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Steiner, K3MS, for the ARISS Team