NASA is hosting a media teleconference at 1:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, March 19, to announce new science from the agency’s first mission to return to Earth an asteroid sample that may contain unaltered material from the very beginning of our solar system.
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The Soyuz rocket is seen at dawn on launch site 1 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Thursday, March 14, 2019 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
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The last full day of Expedition 58—before the launch, docking and consolidation of crews to become Expedition 59—was mostly spent on housekeeping items for the continued, successful operation of the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Anne McClain floated through the Tranquility and Zvezda service modules, deploying acoustic monitors. She paused in the U.S. lab at an EXPRESS rack to install communications gear and perform additional maintenance. David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency also worked with EXPRESS today, moving Space Automated Bioproduct Labs from rack-1 to rack-2. This miniature laboratory within the larger orbiting laboratory supports life science research, hosting microorganisms (bacteria, yeast, algae, fungi, viruses, etc.), small organisms, animal cells, tissue cultures and small plants for evaluation in space.
Expedition Commander Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos replaced fuel bottles on the Combustion Integrated Rack, which allows the crew members to conduct fluids and combustion studies in microgravity.
Today in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch, and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, were certified for flight by the Russian state commission and held their final news conference.
Tomorrow, the soon-to-be station residents will hitch a ride aboard a Soyuz MS-12 for blastoff at 3:14 p.m. EDT on, coincidentally, 3/14. After a relatively speedy six-hour flight, the Soyuz is expected to dock to station’s Rassvet module at 9:07 p.m. Expedition 59 will begin officially at the time of docking.
The events will unfold live on NASA TV, with launch coverage beginning at 2 p.m. and docking coverage at 8:15 p.m., respectively. After a brief break, tune in at 10:30 p.m. for the hatch opening and welcome, which will return the orbiting laboratory’s population to six—including three NASA astronauts. And, just in time for Women’s History Month, this launch marks the fourth Expedition crew with two female astronauts.
Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
Catherine Williams
The amateur radio satellite LilacSat-1 (LO-90) is expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn-up later this month. WEI Mingchuan BG2BHC reports a competition is being held to collect telemetry data and make contacts via the satellite.
Contest Period:
March 16, 2019 UTC 00:00 to LilacSat-1 re-entry
Competition Categories:
• Amateur Radio Telemetry Group
• Amateur Radio Communication Group
Competition Goals:
Amateur Radio Telemetry Group:
• Receive and upload as many telemetry packets as possible within a specified time.
Amateur Radio Communication Group:
• Make as many bidirectional QSO as possible and as many grid locator as possible within a specified time.
Scoring strategy:
Amateur Radio Telemetry Group:
• For each successfully uploaded telemetry packet (The score would be count at HIT server), counts 1 point
Amateur Radio Communication Group:
• Exchange information: callsigns and grid locator
• For each bidirectional QSO, counts 1 point. (Dupe QSO with same callsign is not counted as the number of successful QSO)
• For each different number of grids, counts 1 multiplier.
Final results:
• Amateur Radio Telemetry Group: final score = basic point
• Amateur Radio Communication Group: final score = basic point * multiplier
Awards:
• All telemetry data uploader and participants could get a LilacSat-1 QSL card.
• China: top 3 certificates issued.
• World: Top 10 certificates issued.
• For the ham who receive the last downlink signal in the world and successfully uploaded it to the server, they will receive a special gift.
Honor stickers:
• For all those portable stations or receivers set up and operated in the field for this contest, a ” Field ” sticker is affixed to the certificate, and the applicant is required to attach the operating photo as evidence.
Log submissions:
Amateur Radio Telemetry Group:
• After the satellite re-entry, we will advertise the telemetry package list received from March 16, 2019 UTC 00:00 to LilacSat-1 re-entry.
• The participants should send an e-mail with your callsign and the address to locc@lilacsat.online. (no later than April 30, 2019 UTC 00:00)
Amateur Radio Communication Group:
• After the satellite re-entry, the participants should send an e-mail with the communication log and the address to locc@lilacsat.online. (no later than April 30, 2019 UTC 00:00)
• The log is in Cabrillo or Excel XLS format and needs to contain UTC time, send and receive exchange information.
• For Field/Portable radio stations and receivers, the photo must be sent together.
LilacSat-1 https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/communications/lilacsat-1/
m5aka
AMSAT-UK
Stephanie Wilson is a veteran of three spaceflights–STS-120, STS-121 and STS-131–and has logged more than 42 days in space.
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