AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-094
The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and infor- mation service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.
The news feed on http://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor at amsat.org.
In this edition:
* Replay Available Ham Talk Live! ARISS with Rosalie White, K1STO * AMSAT Dayton Booth Volunteers Needed * AMSAT SA SPACE SYMPOSIUM 2016 * The 13th Annual CubeSat Developers’ Workshop * 2016 VHF SUPER CONFERENCE * STMSat-1 and MinXSS CubeSats Featured on Public Radio * Irvine Students Are On a Mission to Launch a Satellite * Free Tours of Facilities at NASA's Glenn Research Center * ARISS News * Satellite Shorts From All Over
SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-094.01 ANS-094 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 094.01
From AMSAT HQ KENSINGTON, MD.
April 3, 2016 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-094.01
Replay Available Ham Talk Live! ARISS with Rosalie White, K1STO
If you missed this past Thursday evening's Ham Talk Live! show featuring, Rosalie White, K1STO talking about the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program sponsored by ARRL, AMSAT, and NASA, a replay of the recorded show is available on http://www.hamtalklive.com.
The discussion took a look back at the start of the ARISS program, the 1000th QSO that was just completed, and the future of the program. Also featured were some messages from the ISS. Rosalie also told of a way you can help.
Ham Talk Live! airs on the web on Thursday nights at 9PM eastern time. In addition to their hamtalklive.com web site the show can be found on-line via Spreaker, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, YouTube, SoundCloud, or TuneIn.
[ANS thanks Ham Talk Live! For the above information]
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AMSAT Dayton Booth Volunteers Needed
Call for Volunteers for the AMSAT Booth at Dayton 2016
The 2016 Dayton Hamvention®, sponsored by the Dayton Amateur Radio Association will be held this year on May 20-22. “Dayton” is the largest hamfest in the United States, and AMSAT will be there again this year.
You can assist AMSAT by volunteering to help staff the booth. While there, you will meet other AMSAT members, interact with the satellite designers, builders, and operators, and enjoy all that Dayton has to offer.
People are needed to assist with the setup of the booth on Thursday, May 19 (A few people to move the equipment from the storage area leaving the hotel at 9 am, most at the Arena from 11am to 4 pm), to staff the booth Friday (9 am to 6 pm), Saturday (9 am to 5 pm), and Sunday (9 am to 1 pm), and pack up on Sunday (1 pm to 3 pm). If you are leaving late Sunday, or Monday morning, please consider helping transport the display to the storage area on the south side of Dayton. This is normally completed by 5 pm. Most people volunteer for one or more 2 hour shifts in the booth.
Please send an e-mail to Steve Belter, N9IP, n9ip (at) amsat.org, if you are willing to help AMSAT at the Hamvention. Please let Steve know as soon as possible if you're available to assist.
If you missed the Hamvention the last few years, there were some changes in the Ball Arena, and the AMSAT exhibit was part of that change. We now have a 3 X 3 booth arrangement, with the engineering,education, ARISS, and software display on one side of the aisle, and the membership and Beginner¹s Corner on the opposite side. The booth numbers are now 444-446 and 433-435. We will be very near the old exhibit area, within sight of the ARRL exhibit.
[ANS thanks AMSAT.org for the above information]
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AMSAT SA SPACE SYMPOSIUM 2016
The annual AMSAT SA Space Symposium will be held at the Innovation Hub in Pretoria on 28 May 2016.
The theme is “Make Space Sciences part of your development and free time activity”
The conference programme will include a real time review on the SA AMSAT Kletskous CubeSat and papers on other projects, technology and space science subjects.
This is a call for papers to be included in the proceedings and for presentation at the conference. The closing date for synopsis has been extended to 6 April. The final paper will be required in word format by 30 April 2016. Synopsis must be in word format and should be sent to [email protected] .
[ANS thanks AMSAT SA for the above information]
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The 13th Annual CubeSat Developers’ Workshop
The 13th Annual CubeSat Developers’ Workshop (April 20-22, 2016) at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA is just three short weeks away !!
Don’t delay: register now before our Early Bird prices expire! You can register by following the link, here, or following the link on our website, cubesat.org. Please note: The prices for professional attendees will INCREASE in just 6 days, on April 5, 2016!!
[ANS thanks The CubeSat Workshop Team for the above information]
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2016 VHF SUPER CONFERENCE
The upcoming Amateur Radio Technical Conference sponsored by the Southeastern VHF Society, Northeast Weak Signal Group, and Mt. Airy Radio Club will be held at the Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Airport on April 15 to 17. - This year, one large conference is being held in Lieu of three Eastern conferences.
The aim of the educational conference is to share with our fellow VHF, UHF, and Microwave enthusiasts, technical achievements and developments. The technical conference is followed by a dinner, recognition of door prize contributors, and a drawing for door prizes.
Conference Web-site: http://vhfsuperconference.com
The Conference is affiliated with the ARRL.
Contacts Mickie Clement, W1MKY Telephone: 603-428-3840 Email: dpclement at tds.net Gary Hitchner, WA2OMY Email: gary.hitchner at momentumdynamics.com
[ANS thanks Gary WA2OMY and Mickie W1MKY for the above information]
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STMSat-1 and MinXSS CubeSats Featured on Public Radio
Elementary school, St. Thomas More's, satellite STMSat-1 and University of Colorado's Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS)CubeSat were featured in an interview on Colorado Public Radio.
The interview of Doug Duncan, director of the Fiske Planetarium in Boulder by Colorado Matters' host Ryan Warner.
The interview can be heard at http://tinyurl.com/ANS094-CPR
The interview is a good overview of cubsats and their capability.
Both satellites are expected to be launched from the ISS in early April
[ANS thanks Colorado Public Radio for the above information]
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Irvine Students Are On a Mission to Launch a Satellite
The los Angeles Times reports that over a hundred students from five Irvine high schools and another dozen from a local middle school have begun a year long collaboration to engineer, launch and place an operational nanosatellite in orbit.
Teachers from Beckman, Irvine, Northwood and Woodbridge high schools developed curriculum for teams of 20 to 25 students from each school to handle the CubeSat mission.
Students from Irvine's new Portola High School will be brought into the program when the campus opens in the fall. Students from Rancho San Joaquin Middle School are involved in the project as a STEM feeder program. Organizers of the Irving project are in discussions with a Russian company and have targeted a March 2017 launch date. Irving Public Schools Foundation have granted $150,000 in seed money to launch the project.
The schools are planning for three years of missions with a goal of rolling over in perpetuity depending on funding and future support.
The project is the brain child of Brent Freeze and Kain Sosa, neighbors in Irvine's Quail Hill subdivision, who have children in the school district. Their goal is to support education that requires specialized science backgrounds and recognize that developing talent could start with STEM programs in local high schools.
Read the full article at http://preview.tinyurl.com/ANS094-Irvine
[ANS thanks the LA Times for the above information]
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Free Tours of Facilities at NASA's Glenn Research Center
NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is offering tours that take visitors behind the scenes and inside certain research facilities. Glenn scientists and engineers serve as guides. Tours and open house events will be held each month through October 2016. Tours are free for groups and individuals, but to guarantee admission, reservations are required. Visitor parking is also free.
On the days of the tours, a bus departs from Glenn's main gate every hour, beginning at 10 a.m. The last tour departs at 1 p.m. Each tour lasts about 45 minutes and is followed by a stop at Glenn's Gift Shop.
Glenn's 2016 Tour Schedule
April 2, 2016 -- Piloted Control Evaluation Facility and Distributed Engine Control Laboratory: Visit two laboratories that showcase how researchers evaluate propulsion control and aircraft engine control. Tour the Piloted Control Evaluation (Flight Simulator) Facility to see where researchers evaluate the effect of propulsion control on aircraft performance. Visit the Distributed Engine Control Laboratory to learn how NASA evaluates new hardware architectures for aircraft engine control.
May 21-22, 2016 -- Open House at NASA's Glenn Research Center: NASA Glenn is opening its doors to the public for a weekend open house. Visitors will be able to tour many of the center's world-class facilities and see how the center improves aviation and fosters exploration to benefit everyone on Earth. Visitors also will be able to meet an astronaut and talk with engineers, scientists and technicians who work on space programs. Registration for this event is not required.
June 11-12, 2016 -- Open House at NASA's Plum Brook Station: NASA Glenn is opening the doors of Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio, to the public for a weekend open house. Visitors will be able to tour the station's world-class facilities and step inside the world's largest vacuum chamber, which has tested parts of rockets, Mars landers and Orion hardware. Visitors also will be able to meet an astronaut and talk with engineers, scientists and technicians. Registration for this event is not required.
July 9, 2016: Radioisotope Power System, Systems Integration Laboratory: See how NASA emulates the electrical characteristics of a spacecraft system in the Radioisotope Power System, Systems Integration Laboratory. RPS is a source of electricity for NASA space missions from the surface of Mars to the realm of the outer planets.
Aug. 6, 2016 -- See Things a Different Way: Check out Glenn's Graphics and Visualization, or GVIS, and the Reconfigurable User- interface and Virtual Reality Exploration, or GRUVE, Laboratories. The GVIS lab uses advanced computer input and output devices paired with a variety of natural user interface devices and 3-D displays. The GRUVE lab is used to analyze data obtained either by computer simulation or from research test facilities.
Sept. 10, 2016 -- Vibration Testing: Join us on a tour of Glenn's Structural Dynamics Laboratory, where things get shaken to verify their survivability. Several experiments that currently are operating on the International Space Station were tested in this lab.
Oct. 1, 2016 -- Prepare for Impact: Come explore Glenn's Ballistic Impact Facility. See the laboratory that helped to identify the cause of the space shuttle Columbia accident and return NASA's shuttle fleet to flight.
Tours are open to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. To guarantee admission, reservations are required. For more information on tours and how to make reservations, visit http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/events/tours.html.
Please direct questions about the tours to Sheila Reese at [email protected].
[ANS thanks NASA Education Express Message -- March 31, 2016 for the above information]
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ARISS News
+ A Successful contact was made between Hirano Junior High School, Kobe, Japan and Astronaut Tim Kopra KE5UDN using Callsign NA1SS. The contact began 2016-03-28 11:07 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was direct via 8N370H. ARISS Mentor was Satoshi 7M3TJZ.
+ A Successful contact was made between National Soaring Museum, Elmira, New York, USA and Astronaut Timothy Peake KG5BVI using Callsign OR4ISS. The contact began Fri 2016-04-01 18:34:03 UTC and lasted about nine and a half minutes. Contact was telebridge via IK1SLD. ARISS Mentor was Dave AA4KN.
Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule
Kiilinik High School, Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada, telebridge via VK4KHZ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Jeff Williams KD5TVQ Contact is go for: Wed 2016-04-06 18:02:20 UTC
H.A.L. School, Lucknow, India, telebridge via W6SRJ The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS The scheduled astronaut is Tim Kopra KE5UDN Contact is a go for: Fri 2016-04-08 08:17:46 UTC
The next window to submit a proposal for an upcoming contact in the United States is now open. The window is open from 2016-02-15 to 2016-04-15 and would be for contacts between 2017-01-01 and 2017-06-30.
Check out the ARISS website http://www.ariss.org/ or the ARRL website http://www.arrl.org/hosting-an-ariss-contact for full details.
ARISS is always glad to receive listener reports for the above contacts. ARISS thanks everyone in advance for their assistance. Feel free to send your reports to [email protected] or [email protected].
Here you will find a listing of all scheduled school contacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echolink websites, and instructions for any contact that may be streamed live. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf
Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school events is 1038. Each school counts as 1 event. Total number of ARISS ISS to earth school contacts is 1003. Each contact may have multiple schools sharing the same time slot. Total number of ARISS supported terrestrial contacts is 47.
A complete year by year breakdown of the contacts may be found in the file. http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf
The following US states and entities have never had an ARISS contact: Arkansas, Delaware, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, and the Virgin Islands. Schools in these entities are encouraged to apply for a contact.
[ANS thanks ARISS, Charlie AJ9N and David AA4KN for the above information]
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Satellite Shorts From All Over
+ JSatTrak Satellite App Released
Developed by Shawn Gano KB3OJE, JSatTrack is written in Java and allows you to predict the position of any satellite in real time or in the past or future. It uses advanced SGP4/SDP4 algorithms developed by NASA/NORAD or customizable high precision solvers to propagate satellite orbits. The program also allows for easy updating of current satellite tracking data via CelesTrak.com. Because this application was written in Java, it should run on almost any operating system or directly off the web using java web start!
Questions and comments are welcome at the JSatTrack Forum http://www.gano.name/shawn/JSatTrak/forum
The JSatTrack App can be downloaded from http://www.gano.name/shawn/JSatTrak/
[ANS thanks Shawn KB3OJE for the abiove information]
+ Proposal windows for ARISS school contacts are still open in the United States and Europe.
For more information about scheduled US contacts visit http://www.arrl.org/hosting-an-ariss-contact
For more information about scheduled European Region contact visit http://www.ariss-eu.org/school-contacts
[ANS thanks ARISS for the above information]
+ Current profiles of the crew currently aboard the ISS, Expedition 47, can be found at: http://www.ariss.org/current-iss-crew.html
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/EX
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club. Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive addi- tional benefits. Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office.
Primary and secondary school students are eligible for membership at one-half the standard yearly rate. Post-secondary school students enrolled in at least half time status shall be eligible for the stu- dent rate for a maximum of 6 post-secondary years in this status. Contact Martha at the AMSAT Office for additional student membership information.
73, This week's ANS Editor, EMike McCardel, AA8EM (former KC8YLD) kc8yld at amsat dot org