ARISS International Teleconference

Tuesday August 17, 2004 11:30 UTC (7:30 am ET)

Participants:

Frank Bauer
Rosalie White
Sergej Samburov
Larry Agabekov
Masanobu Tsuji
Lou McFadin
Ken Pulfer
Scott Anderson
Mark Steiner
Scott Stevens
Gaston Bertels
Tadeu Fernandes
Kenneth Ransom
Dave Larsen
Daniel Lamoureux
Ken Nichols
Interpreter, Mark Leybovich
Dan Schultz
Mark Spencer

Not Attending:
Robin Haighton
Bill Boston
Miles Mann
Carol Jackson
Mike Miller
Keigo Komuro

ARISS I Agenda:

Administrative Session


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

NOTE: Deadline for hotel reservations is the second week in September, with only a block of 26 set aside for the last few days of the meeting. Make sure you mention AMSAT or ARISS for the block of reservations.
Paper submission deadline is the end of this week (Friday, August 21, 2004).

US entrance requirements have changed, so please check with your government to make sure you have all that is needed (visas are now required for some countries that were not required before, etc.) We still have 2 months, so you probably have time if you start now.

Please send agenda items to Frank and Gaston so they can begin developing the agenda for the pre-meeting and the meeting itself.

- Hardware Discussions at the Meeting
Frank noted that the detailed hardware discussions will be held in side meetings, with status and summaries to be presented at the general ARISS meeting.

- Roundtable discussion
There will be a roundtable panel discussion for ARISS participants as part of the AMSAT meeting, probably on Saturday.

- Notes
Carl Walz will be the AMSAT banquet speaker. Carl was involved in the installation of some of the antennas on the Service Module and is a leader in NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration.

Please remember to register for the AMSAT meeting as well.

2) International Special Event, December/January, Presenter: Kenneth Ransom

Kenneth is proposing a Special Event in the December/January timeframe, comparable to the US Field Day in June. It would not be focused on the US but on Europe, with, of course, all international participation welcome. If there are any activities already planned, ARISS could “piggy-back” on them to take advantage of any publicity already in progress.

Frank asked if this would be a several-week event like the Roy Neal event in 2003, but Kenneth was thinking more along the lines of Field Day, over a few days. It would be good for crew psych support, especially during the winter holiday season. Perhaps a “message from Santa” type of event. 

One concern would be time for the crew to participate if it is only a few days long. We would need a commitment from ISS schedulers that the crew would be available, barring any emergencies, of course. An event over several weeks increases the likelihood of the crew being available at some point.

Question: Would special certificates be available?

Kenneth: If have a special event specifically for the ISS, then certificates would be a good idea. If “piggy-back” on an existing event, then ISS would just be a possible participant with no guarantees.

Sergej feels the crew will be interested and excited. The October Progress should include 3 new computers and the SSTV hardware. Even if these new computers are not used, their freeing up of the old computers would allow the use of SSTV and the packet mailbox.

Rosalie: US has a public service event that might work out.

Frank would like everyone to think about this topic (both independent events and tag-along events) and email ideas on ARISS-I for discussion. If nothing else comes up, could reprise the Roy Neal event of last year.


3) New business (administrative only)

Gaston is working with ESTEC’s ISS Utilization Service to see how they are interfacing with the NASA Headquarters Education Office regarding the possibility of setting up a yearly activity for Dutch schools relating to space. This would be funded by the Dutch government. Gaston is working to have ARISS included in the planning. This yearly event in the Netherlands would culminate in a school contact with the ISS.

Sergej added that the Russian team is ready to support this program, just need about 2 weeks advance notice to plan event.



General Session

4) Hardware Status

Frank Bauer:
Kenwood D700A has been checked out on 2m and 70 cm, and will soon be used for school contacts. The repeater mode is in the process of being checked out.

Sergej Samburov:
The computer specialist has returned to the US, so the US side can begin to get more information on the IBM A31 computer. Frank noted that we really need to have a dedicated computer for the crew before they can begin using the Kenwood’s packet mailbox.


4) New business

None.


5) Notes

Sergej noted that the ISS crew has recorded a video greeting congratulating the Russian Magazine Radio on 80 years of operation.



Respectfully submitted,

Mark Steiner, K3MS for the ARISS Team