ISS Fan Club

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Baiting Hollow Scout Camp, Calverton, NY on 3 July. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 16:47 UTC. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and WH6PN. The contact will be conducted in English.

Baiting Hollow Scout Camp is owned and operated by the Suffolk County Council of the Boy Scouts of America who have been serving scouting for over 81 years. Located on the North Shore of Long Island the camp has a freshwater lake and beachfront on the shore. Offering year round camping and programs to Boy Scouts, Cub scouts, Venturing Crews and their families. The Camp offers swimming, sailing, boating water skiing, climbing, shooting sports, crafts, nature studies, scout craft and much more. This year's theme is "The Final Frontier". The scouts will get first-hand experience with the space program through this event and hopefully, it will stimulate them to learn more about space travel, astronomy, and, of course, radio communications. Members from the Eastern Long Island's Peconic Amateur Radio Club will be assisting the scouts for this event.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00:29 PM CDT

A test fueling of space shuttle Endeavour's external tank revealed no gaseous hydrogen leaks, verifying recent repairs were successful, NASA managers confirmed during a Wednesday afternoon news conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The tanking test began at 6:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday. During the next three hours, teams in the Launch Control Center watched closely for signs of a leak as liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen poured into the massive orange tank. Previous attempts to launch Endeavour on the STS-127 mission were scrubbed by a leak in the area of the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, which attaches a gaseous hydrogen vent line to the external tank. Crews worked tirelessly to investigate and repair the problem.

The Expedition 20 crew aboard the orbiting International Space Station bid farewell, for now, to an unpiloted Progress cargo craft Tuesday.

The ISS Progress 33 undocked from the Pirs docking compartment at 2:30 p.m. EDT. Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Roman Romanenko monitored the undocking and photographed the departing cargo craft to assess the condition of its docking assembly.

The Progress will continue to move away from the station until Friday, when the vehicle will perform a retrograde burn to place the spacecraft into a parking orbit. Another burn on July 11 sets up the Progress for its final rendezvous with the station on July 12. The cargo ship will approach to within 10 to 15 meters of the Zvezda service module to test new automated rendezvous equipment mounted on Zvezda during a pair of spacewalks earlier this month. This equipment will be used to guide the new Mini-Research Module-2 (MRM2) to an unpiloted docking to the zenith port of Zvezda later this year. MRM2 will serve as a new docking port for Russian spacecraft and an additional airlock for spacewalks conducted out of the Russian segment.

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Inukjuak Space Camp, Kuujjuaq Quebec, Canada on 1 July. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 14:25 UTC.

The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 50 seconds.

The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and W6SRJ. The contact should be audible over the west coast of the U.S. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact will be conducted in English.

Inukjuak is an Inuit settlement located on Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Innuksuak River in the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, Canada. The population in 2008 was approximately 1500. It is only accessible by boat during the summer, but air service is available year round. Inukjuak means "The Giant" in the Inuktitut language. In the past, the site was known as Port Harrison. The area has long been inhabited by the Inuit - many archeological sites confirm this.For this Space contact, students will be flown from various parts of the northern region to take part in this Space camp sponsored by the Makivik corporation (Inuit Air, First Air), The Canadian Space Agency and ICOM Canada.

The Expedition 20 crew is filling the Progress 33 with discarded equipment, gear and trash for disposal. The cargo craft will undock from the International Space Station on Tuesday and will enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up over the Pacific Ocean on July 12.

Before deorbiting the Progress 33 will rendezvous with the station one final time to test newly installed Kurs equipment in advance of the arrival of the Mini-Research Module 2 in November. The Kurs equipment was installed during a spacewalk earlier this month.

While Progress vehicles are docked with the station, the oxygen stored in them is used to replenish the station’s atmosphere. The crew monitored the purging of the Progress 33’s fuel and oxidizer supplies Friday and tested the Zvezda to Progress telerobotically operated rendezvous system.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contact
2. Successful ARISS Contact with ESA Astronaut Frank De Winne
3. Belgian High School Students Participate in ARISS Contact
4. ARRL Article on Field Day
5. Astronaut Training Status

1. Upcoming School Contact
Inukjuak Space Camp in Kuujjuaq Quebec, Canada has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Wednesday, July 1 at 14:25 UTC assisted by telebridge station W6SRJ in California. Makivik Corporation, a non-profit organization that promotes economic growth of Inuit businesses, is supporting the event. Students from grades 1-6 have been involved in a space club to learn about space, the ISS and radio protocol.

According to NASA ISS Ham Radio Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, there is a good possibility that groups participating in ARRL Field Day may be able to make a contact with one of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"Some of the crew members of the International Space Station plan to make contacts with operators on the ground during Field Day operations as time permits" Ransom said. "Since the ISS now has a multinational crew representing all five space agencies, the possible club call signs to be heard are RS0ISS, NA1SS and OR4ISS. The crew could also elect to use their personal calls, as well. In either case, they will be signing 1A (Alfa) ISS after the call sign."

An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Karel de Grote-Hogeschool, Department IWT, Hoboken, Belgium on 27 June. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 09:33 UTC. The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 52 seconds. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and W6SRJ. The contact should be audible over the west coast of the U.S. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English (or Dutch).

The Karel de Grote-Hogeschool is a university college in Antwerp, Belgium. With a student population around 8000 students, it is among the largest educational institutes in Flanders. The department of Industrial Sciences and Technology has about 1100 students. Their programs allow students to seek professional Bachelor degrees in Chemistry, Biomedical Lab-technology, Automotive technology, Electromechanics, Photography, Multimedia and Communication technology. In addition, academic degrees are offered such as Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Electronics-ICT and Electromechanics. The latter are known as "Applied Engineering" degrees.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. ARISS International Meeting Held
3. ARISS News on Amateur Radio Newsline

1. Upcoming School Contacts
Centre scolaire de Berlaymont in Waterloo, Belgium has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Monday June 22 at 12:15 UTC. This will be a telebridge contact via station W6SRJ in California. Students will pose questions about life and work in space to European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Frank De Winne on the International Space Station. Audio from this contact will be fed into the EchoLink AMSAT (101377) and JK1ZRW (277208) servers.