ARISS International Teleconference

Tuesday July 20, 2004 11:30 UTC (7:30 am ET)

 Participants:

 Frank Bauer
Rosalie White
Ken Pulfer
Carol Jackson
Mark Steiner
Keigo Komuro
Masanobu Tsuji
Gaston Bertels
Lou McFadin
Dave Larsen
Mike Miller
Miles Mann
Mark Spencer
Daniel Lamoureux
Scott Anderson
Scott Stevens
Walker Knight/JSC (for Kenneth Ransom, on vacation)

 Interpreter: Michael Malyshev 

Not present:

Sergej Samburov
Robin Haighton
Kenneth Ransom
Tadeu Fernandes
Larry Agabekov
Ken Nichols
Bill Boston

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative Session

1) ARISS International Meeting, Arlington,Virginia, October 2004, Presenter:

F. Bauer

Information, including dates, times, and locations, is on the AMSAT website at www.amsat.org. The AMSAT symposium starts Friday, Oct. 8.

Please register for the AMSAT symposium prior to September 8 to get the lowest price.

If you want to submit a paper, talk to Frank by July 30.

Discussion:

Frank noted that there is a great deal of information on the AMSAT website. There is a fair amount of interest from people wanting to be guest observers.

Meeting agenda: Technical discussions will be different this time, with the Project Selection and Use (PSU) committee meeting about a month prior to make decisions. We are trying to get the right balance between getting the full set of information from the PSU Committee to the delegates and not taking an inordinate amount of time during the plenary session. The plan is for the PSU Committee to hold telecon discussions with each of the proposers and finish recommendations about a month prior to the international meeting (about Sept. 10). Frank asked for a PSU Committee schedule to be posted on ARISS-I. Carol Jackson will help set up telecons.

For the PSU Committee agenda item, they will present recommendations for project approval. 

As part of the ARISS agenda, overview status of hardware that is onboard and about to be launched will be separate from the PSU committee agenda. 

Miles asked that there be a “Lessons Learned” agenda item on prior and current systems. 

Frank would like to have each region submit a status/accomplishment report of a few paragraphs for Frank to include as part of a joint paper at the AMSAT Symposium. (School contacts, Columbus module, taxi expeditions, etc.) Deadline for inputs would be August 6. There would be a panel discussion that would include the ARISS delegates, allowing them to present region information to the AMSAT Symposium participants. 

2) Point of Contact List, Presenter: Carol Jackson 

List was distributed on ARISS-I.  Carol asked for final corrections in the next week or so, about July 30. 

3) New business (administrative only) None.

 General Session

4) Use D700 as a Voice Repeater, Presenter: Miles Mann

Miles would like to have the D700 radio in the voice repeater mode to keep interest up in ISS ops.  One disadvantage would be extra steps to reconfigure into and out of school contact mode.

Frank: We have been working to get the Kenwood checkout passes accomplished that would allow us to verify this mode of operation along with the primary goal of verifying voice ops for school contacts for 2m and 70 cm. The current target date for the voice checkout passes is this Thursday, July 22.  The voice repeater ops is expected somewhat later.  If the JSC team gets a heads up that the voice repeater is about to be enabled, the ops team will be informed to check out the system. 

5) SSTV Band, Presenter: Miles Mann 

Miles feels that we should put SSTV on 2m, where people with 0 gain antennas could still receive 2 pictures per orbit. This was very effective during the Mir mission, even without promotion. 

Kenneth Ransom will be leading the development of an internationally coordinated plan for use of modes and bands onboard as we move even more into multi-station operations. Interested parties so far are: Kenneth Ransom (has started), Frank Bauer, Miles Mann, Lou McFadin, Dave Larsen and Scott Stevens. 

6) New business 

Debrief from Mike Foale, Presenter: Frank Bauer

-         most important item is to get a dedicated computer for ISS Ham. (There is a move to replace all laptops onboard with IBM Thinkpad A31’s). The Russian segment is also pushing for a dedicated computer for ISS Ham. There will be a coordination meeting in mid-August, at which we hope to have a resolution to this matter.

New Russian satellite possibility – would be brought up via Russian launch, installed externally via EVA, and then on a later EVA released for free-flying mission.  This will be discussed in the Project Selection and Use committee. 

Next teleconference: Tuesday, August 17. 

Respectfully submitted,
Mark Steiner, K3MS for the ARISS Team