SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

NASA Science News for October 4, 2007

Fifty years after the launch of Sputnik kicked off the Space Age, an ultra-modern probe heading for Pluto is using retro Sputnik-like tones to communicate with Earth.

*October 4, 2007:* "Beep… beep… beep http://www.amsat.org/amsat/features/sounds/sputnik1.wav...." That's the sound that marked the beginning of the Space Age fifty years ago. It was a simple radio tone transmitted by the first satellite, Sputnik 1, as it orbited Earth in October 1957.

see caption http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/images/beaconmonitor/welch1.gifSince then communication with spacecraft has advanced tremendously. Yet a modern probe on the way to the edge of the solar system is using Sputnik-like tones to send messages back to Earth.

In Oct. 1957, ham radio operator Roy Welch of Dallas, Texas, tunes in to the 20 MHz radio tones of Sputnik. FOR THE REST OF THE STORY GO TO:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/04oct_beaconmonitor.htm?list833780

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