Hi,
in March 2006 the VOYAGER-1 interstellar probe was received by the AMSAT-DL/IUZ team using the 20m dish in Bochum. Imagine that Voyager 1 is the furthest object away from earth build by humans. http://www.amsat-dl.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6...
A reception report including a poster was sent to the JPL team and a few days ago we received the following eMail, together with a nice picture of the Voyager Flight Team and our reception report in their hands.
" On June 6, 2007, the Voyager Flight Team opened the photo we received in the mail from you. Congratulations on your successful downlink acquisition of Voyager 1 at your 20 meter tracking station. Acquiring such a distant object is a remarkable achievement, especially for an amateur team. Thank you very much for your interest in Voyager. "
As a token of our appreciation, please find the attached photo of our team. Voyager Flight Team Members are, from left to right, Mr. Ed Massey - Project Manager, Steve Howard - Ground Data Systems Engineer, Thomas Weeks - Attitude Control Sensors Engineer, Regina Wong - Science Processing, Larry Zotarelli - Sequence Engineer, Pearline Johnson - Finance, Jim Jaeger - Data System Engineer, Roger Ludwig - Telecom & Sequence Integration Engineer, Sun Matsumoto - System Lead & Fault Protection Engineer, Enrique Medina - Attitude Control & Electrical Power Engineer, Glenda Sherman - Secretary, Jefferson Hall - Mission Director.
Sincerely, Roger Ludwig on behalf of the Voyager Flight Team "
The picture can be found here:
http://www.amsat-dl.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1...
Congratulations to our AMSAT-DL/IUZ team in Bochum for this huge achievement. It also demonstrates now officially that the 20m dish is good enough to support the AMSAT P5-A Mission to Mars
73s Peter DB2OS AMSAT-DL President