Lost in the glare following the Apollo 11 Moon landing, two intrepid robotic spacecraft flew by Mars in the summer of 1969 and returned photographs and a trove of scientific information.
NASA Image of the Day
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NASA’s Geosynchronous Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer (GLIMR) instrument will collect high-resolution observations of coastal ecosystems in such areas as the northern Gulf of Mexico, shown in this image with phytoplankton blooms stretching from the Texas and Louisiana coast (left) across the Mississippi River delta (center) toward Florida (far right). Credits: NASA
NASA has selected a space-based instrument under its Earth Venture Instrument (EVI) portfolio that will make observations of coastal waters to help protect ecosystem sustainability, improve resource management, and enhance economic activity.
NASA Breaking News
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A Mishap Investigation Board appointed by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has identified the most likely cause for an instrument issue aboard NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-17 satellite that launched March 1, 2018 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
NASA Breaking News
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The International Space Station is hosting five spaceships today as August ramps up for more orbital traffic activity. Six Expedition 60 crewmembers are also unloading U.S. and Russian cargo, activating new science experiments and stocking the station’s galley.
Russia’s Progress 73 (73P) cargo craft completed a fast-track delivery mission early Wednesday docking to the Pirs Docking Compartment just three hours and nineteen minutes after launching from Kazakhstan. Cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov opened the 73P hatch shortly afterward starting its four-month stay. He and station Commander Alexey Ovchinin then began unloading nearly three tons of new consumables, fuel and supplies.
Two U.S. space freighters occupy the station’s Earth-facing Harmony and Unity module ports. Harmony will open up Tuesday when Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply ship departs after 109 days in space. The Canadarm2 robotic arm installed the SpaceX Dragon to Unity on Saturday after its arrival and capture beginning a month of cargo operations.
NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague are tending to mice today shipped aboard Dragon for ongoing biological research. The reusable vehicle will return the mice back to Earth at the end of the month, including other cargo, so scientists can analyze a variety of changes that only occur in microgravity.
Dragon also delivered a new commercial crew vehicle port, the International Docking Adapter-3 (IDA-3), in its unpressurized trunk. Robotics controllers will soon extract the IDA-3 before two spacewalkers install it to Unity’s space-facing port a few days later.
A few days before Dragon departs, Russia will launch an unpiloted Soyuz MS-14 crew ship to the orbiting lab for a test of its upgraded 2.1a Soyuz booster. It will dock to the Poisk module for a two-week stay before parachuting back to Earth in the vast steppe of Kazakhstan.
Mark Garcia
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The SSA report:
At a previous CEPT meeting (PTA), France has proposed an agenda item to WRC-23 that the coexistence between satellite navigation (eg Galileo) and amateur radio in the band 1240-1300 MHz should be investigated. The proposal was voted down at the preparatory PTA meeting, but France has now sent letters to the various telecommunications authorities with a request that they now support this proposal at the forthcoming CPG19-9. SSA opposes this.
SSA has therefore sent a supplementary letter to PTS about our 23 cm amateur band. Our section leader for IARU and VUSHF Mats SM6EAN explains the background and our opinion on our section pages. Here you can also read the new letter to PTS.
Hans-Christian SM6ZEM
Link to letter in Google English is available via https://tinyurl.com/SwedenSSA
The next meeting of the CEPT ECC Conference Preparatory Group CPG-19 takes place in Ankara, Turkey on August 26-30, 2019. The meeting documents should be available in advance at
https://cept.org/ecc/groups/ecc/cpg/client/meeting-documents/?flid=8819
1240-1300 MHz band discussed by CEPT WGFM and CPG/PTA
https://amsat-uk.org/2019/05/31/1240-1300-mhz-band-discussed-by-cept-wgfm-and-cpg-pta/
1240-1300 MHz IARU Region 1 paper PTA(19)069 – RNSS Proposal WRC-19 AI 10
http://rsgb.org/main/files/2019/06/PTA19069_IARU_AI-10_Amateur-GNSS_Final.pdf
January 2006 – Potential Interference To Galileo From 23cm Band Operations by Peter Blair G3LTF
http://www.southgatearc.org/articles/galileo.htm
m5aka
AMSAT-UK
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Sweden’s national amateur radio society, the SSA, has sent a supplementary letter to the communications regulator PTS ahead of the next meeting of the CEPT ECC Conference Preparatory Group CPG-19.