{authorlink}
NASA Breaking News
Powered by WPeMatico
October will be a busy month as a pair of crews get ready to swap places on the International Space Station followed by a pair of spacewalks. Also, Japan’s HTV-7 resupply ship is open for business and the Expedition 56 crew has begun unloading its science and supplies.
Station commander Drew Feustel is preparing to return to Earth Thursday with two of his crewmates despite a busy schedule of science and maintenance aboard the orbital lab. Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev is packing the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft today that he will pilot back to Earth flanked by Feustel and NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold. The trio is due to land in Kazakhstan at 7:45 a.m. after 197 days in space.
Expedition 57 starts when the Soyuz MS-08 crew ship undocks Thursday at 3:57 a.m. EDT. Staying behind are Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency) who will command the station with Flight Engineers Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Sergey Prokopyev until a new pair of crewmates join the following week.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Soyuz Commander Alexey Ovchinin will blast off Oct. 11 at 4:40 a.m. aboard the Soyuz MS-10 crew ship and take a six hour ride to their new home in space. The duo is in Kazakhstan at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site making final preparations for their 187 day mission.
The station is being replenished today as the crew begins offloading cargo from the HTV-7 resupply ship from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). Robotics controllers will soon unload new lithion-ion batteries packed inside HTV-7 and install them on the truss structure to upgrade the station’s power systems. A pair of spacewalks are planned before the end of the month to complete the battery connections.
Mark Garcia
{authorlink}
ISS
Powered by WPeMatico
{authorlink}
NASA Image of the Day
Powered by WPeMatico
Naomi Kurahara JE6GXN
The AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium is being held in conjunction with the RSGB Convention in Milton Keynes. One of the highlights will be a presentation by Naomi Kurahara JE6GXN CEO of Infostellar Inc.
She will be giving a presentation about her philosophy for shared ground station operation for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites such as CubeSats and Nanosats.
StellarStation Amateur provides free Launch and Early Operation (LEOP) support for amateur UHF band satellites providing access to telemetry data using their worldwide ground station network.
StellarStation Amateur https://www.stellarstation.com/amateur
The AMSAT-UK Colloquium is being held as part of the RSGB Convention at the Kents Hill Park Conference Centre in Milton Keynes, October 13-14. Booking, travel and schedule information via https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/
m5aka
AMSAT-UK
Powered by WPeMatico
Es’hail-2 coverage area
DARC reports on Saturday, September 29, the annual symposium of AMSAT-DL took place in the IUZ observatory Bochum.
The Google translation reads:
There were lectures on current amateur radio satellites and space projects. The focus was on the first geostationary amateur radio satellite Es’hail-2, whose launch is expected later this year, as well as the MEGINASAT project, the first CubeSat from a German grammar school.
The lecture series was opened by Thilo Elsner, DJ5YM, whose article gave an overview of the ESERO office Germany opened in Bochum on May 16. ESERO stands for “European Space Education Resource Office”. The aim of the initiative is to bring space travel in the context of STEM subjects exciting and innovative in the classroom. After a lengthy selection process, Bochum was chosen as the location for Germany. In cooperation with the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the observatory Bochum, the AMSAT-DL and other partners are founding members of this educational and scientific consortium.
Afterwards, AMSAT-DL-President Peter Gülzow, DB2OS, and Achim Vollhardt, DH2VA, talked about the current status of Es’hail-2 (called AMSAT-intern P4-A), whose launch will start in the fourth quarter of 2018 according to operator Es’hailSat should be done. A concrete start date is still not available. Recently, the AMSAT-DL completed and finalized the individual components for the Es’hail-2 ground station in Doha / Qatar. “Last week we finished the work and made the equipment ready to ship,” reported DB2OS. The components will soon be installed in Qatar. Another facility will be back up at the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS) in Doha. A third ground station will be installed at the AMSAT-DL in the Bochum observatory. Two transponders are available on the satellite for amateur radio: a narrowband and a broadband transponder to be used for DATV broadcasts. “We hope to be able to present live broadcasts in DATV at the next HAM RADIO from June 21 to 23, 2019,” said Gülzow optimistically.
How satellite radio can also contribute to the successful recruitment of youngsters was demonstrated by the MEGINASAT team headed by project leader Thomas Leister, DG2PU. The project originated from an ISS contact of the Megina Gymnasium Mayen in 2012 and a stratospheric balloon launch in 2016. Specifically, MEGINASAT is the first CubeSat from a German grammar school. The students Florian Jüngermann, Max von Wolff (Physics Bundessieger at Jugend forscht) and Max Schild presented the project and pursue ambitious goals: The CubeSat is to serve Earth observation and send its image data by light transmission to Earth. Also sponsorship funds in five-digit amount have already been collected, now the team is looking for only one.
Source DARC https://www.darc.de/
AMSAT-DL President Peter Gülzow DB2OS will be giving a presentation “Es’hail-2 and its amateur radio payload” at the AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium which is being held as part of the RSGB Convention at the Kents Hill Park Conference Centre in Milton Keynes, October 13-14 https://amsat-uk.org/colloquium/
Get The Details…
m5aka
{authorlink}
AMSAT-UK
Powered by WPeMatico
