Slow Scan TV from ISS planned for October 2008 ---------------------------------------------- Miles Mann WF1F has news of planned Amateur Radio Slow Scan TV transmissions from the International Space Station in October when Richard Garriott W5KWQ arrives at the station. "I have recently returned from the ARISS meeting in Moscow (August 2008). During the meeting we received details on Richard Garriott's upcoming mission. Below is a joint memo from ARISS regarding Garriott's mission: On Oct 12, 2008, Space flight participant Richard Garriott will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on his way to the International Space Station. After docking with the ISS on Oct 14, he will spend 9 days conducting experiments and doing extensive photography of the Earth. Since he is also a licensed amateur radio operator W5KWQ, he will be making several school contacts, talking with operators on the ground and transmitting Slow Scan Television images. The standard downlink of 145.800 will be used for voice contacts, school contacts and SSTV transmissions. Anyone with a FM receiver capable of monitoring the 145.800 MHz downlink can receive audio and SSTV images. The best image received for a given time period will be posted to http://www.issspacecam.org/ and www.marexmg.org Additional information about Richard Garriott's flight and activities are available at: http://www.richardinspace.com/ http://www.challenger.org/ http://www.ariss.org/ Miles WF1F MAREX-MG http://www.southgatearc.org/news/september2008/slow_scan_tv_from_iss.htm ISS gets a new TM-700 transceiver and VC-H1 ------------------------------------------- There are tentative plans to fly the backup spare Kenwood TM-700 from Russia to the International Space Station on this month's September 9th Progress-30 cargo rocket. The current Kenwood D700 on ISS has been in space since August 2003 and in Powered-On service since December 2003. In anticipation of Richard Garriott, W5KWQ's upcoming mission in October 2008, the Russian team decided to fly the spare D700 along with a complete set of cables and computer interface VOX box into space. In addition to the D700, there are also plans to fly the Kenwood VC-H1 SSTV image communicator. Richard Garriott, the legendary video game programmer and designer, noted as one of the PC Gamer’s “Game Gods”, will be traveling to orbit in Fall 2008. In doing so he will become Earth's sixth private citizen to conduct a space mission aboard the International Space Station as a client of Space Adventures. Early on in his flight, W5KWQ expects to setup a Kenwood VC-H1 portable video transceiver and transmit a new Earth image every 3 minutes. He hopes to have this system on a great deal of his flight and ARISS is encouraging the ham community to bring SSTV equipment into schools and download these images for students in real-time. But that’s not all. ARISS also plans to display images from hams around the world on a special web and blog site. A beta site has been developed and will be rolled out to the ham community in the near future. To successfully implement the on-line SSTV picture site and support it around the clock during Garriott's flight, ARISS will need some savvy individuals that can sort through the many SSTV photos and keep the SSTV site up to date in near real time. ARISS says that it is looking for global support from a few individuals in each international region to make this happen. That way it will not be asking any one person to volunteer on an around the clock basis. Obviously, some computer skills will be required. If you are interested in helping on this, please contact ARISS International Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO. His E-Mail is ka3hdo at comcast dot net and mention that you heard the request on Amateur Radio Newsline™ update 20.10.: Richard completed the sixth of the seven school contacts planned during his tour on the ISS. This is already the most every completed by a space flight participant. The hatch between the Soyuz and ISS is planned to be closed at 2105 GMT Thursday, undocking at 0012 GMT on Friday and landing in Kazakhstan at 0336 GMT on Friday. Given the limited availability of ISS computer systems, the ARISS team will continue to utilize the VC-H1 well after Richard's flight. So don't be surprised if you see some VC-H1 SSTV operations from Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, during his stay as the commander of Expedition 18. 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO ARISS International Chairman http://ariss-sstv.blogspot.com/ QSOs and SSTV video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW9DXHkKpNo update October 30: MESSAGE FROM RICHARD GARRIOTT Richard, W5KWQ, landed in Kazakhstan on Friday, 24 October 2008 at about 09:36 local time and was met there by his father Owen, W5LFL. They became the first American "second generation" father/son combination to have both flown in space and the first cosmonaut/astronaut trained pair in the world. They returned to Star City near Moscow that afternoon for medical evaluation and this is the first interview provided by Richard the very next day. It is transcribed and delivered by Owen to the ham community. "On my recent flight I had the great opportunity to speak directly with and trade call signs with hundreds of hams around the globe. For me it was a unexpected joy to find so many enthusiastic hams, who were so well informed and interested in my activities in orbit. When I began my transmissions with preplanned SSTV images including "pirate messages", test patterns and family images, I did not know how they would be received. But it seemed that fellow hams really enjoyed seeing this beginning to my time on the International Space Station (ISS). Throughout the bulk of my 10 days on the ISS I tried to be speaking by voice or transmitting SSTV images whenever possible. After my first 100 or so QSOs, I understood how well "networked" the global ham community really is. I received specific reports back through Mission Control-Moscow about technical aspects of my work and how the community was enjoying the transmissions. This redoubled my enthusiasm to do quality work for the amateur radio legions around the world as I realized how much it meant to those with whom I had the chance to talk. By late in my flight I had contacted many hundreds of hams by voice and I have good records of these contacts. Finally I sent some "Goodbye" images on my last day in space. I also contacted many hams that had listened to or contacted my father from space 25 years ago. Some hams I contacted 2 to 4 times on my flight. On those last days I was very moved when sent many "soft landing" messages from individuals and classrooms full of children as I passed by. The ham community has added greatly to my personal feelings of success on my flight. I can only hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks so much and 73 Richard, W5KWQ" Message forwarded by Frank Bauer, KA3HDO ARISS chairman