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K5ARH > SAREX 16.07.97 02:29l 153 Lines 6851 Bytes #-10395 (0) @ AMSAT
BID : STS-94.023
Read: GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: STS-94 SAREX Bulletin 23
Path: DB0RGB<DB0LAN<DB0MWS<DB0RBS<DB0SWR<DB0FP<DB0SRS<DB0MW<DB0AIS<DB0NDK<
DB0ACH<ON4RAT<ON1ANR<ON6AR<F6CNB<WB0TAX<K5ARH
Sent: 970715/1949z @:K5ARH.#LFT.LA.USA.NOAM #:48966 $:sts-94.023
Silver Spring, Maryland USA
Tuesday, July 15, 1997 @ 1600 UTC
Orbiter Attitude Info
As the first Microgravity Science Laboratory mission begins Day 14
of its flight, crew members are working steadily to complete the
remaining investigations scheduled for the 16-day mission.
In addition to the school contacts, the crew of STS-94 Columbia
have been averaging about 20 random voice contacts per shift, with
two shifts having been active each day of the flight. Packet radio
operations began earlier than expected. The packet robot was
on the air by Flight Day 9 (Wednesday, July 9).
At 10:59 AM 7/15/97 +0930, Steve Pearson, VK8KCK wrote:
> I was able to work KC5RNI (Operator was Greg) at 12:45 UTC
> (14/7/97) from Darwin, Australia. He called CQ for the entire
> pass over Northern Australia and I was the only station to
> respond! I was running 50 watts into a co-linear vertical.
> Uplink was 144.95 MHz. While I could hear Greg for most of
> the pass, my signal was only clearly readable for a few
> minutes of the pass (max elevation 42 degrees).
At 09:36 AM 7/12/97 EDT, Rick Largent, N5ZNL in Mississippi wrote:
>Dear Pat,
> Thanks a bunch for the work you and the others do in providing the
>information needed for hams to contact the shuttle. Without the
>timely information you provide, contact would much harder at best.
>I made a voice QSO on Orbit 14 (07/02/97 18:13) and a packet connect
>(#14) on Orbit 139 (07/10/97 11:19 UTC). I want to say thanks, and
>I think all the calls in the QRZ #46 [and QSL beacons] will join
>with me.
>
>W5RRR-1>QRZ [07/10/97 12:54:13] <UI>:
>#46-KK2L N9AB W4UE KK5XF XE2NGT N0VSE KF7E K8SIN KO6XI VK6YEI W2KQ
>N2OEQ N9PRP K5PK KE4KND W4SV AB4EG N5YFA N5ZNL K4SDW ZL1AKJ VK4GEL
>FO3PJ JH2VHL W6MJE K6RO W6KK W6DA N7QQ N6HL WB6UCD K4RS KG3N F1OKN
>NOCALL
>
>W5RRR-1>QSL [07/10/97 12:54:14] <UI>:
>N9AB/36 W4UE/34 N0VSE/28 VK6YEI/25 KG3N/24 W2KQ/23 K5PK/19 AB4EG/15
>N5ZNL/14 ZL1AKJ/12 FO3PJ/10 JH2VHL/9 F1OKN/5
>
>W5RRR-1>SAREX [07/10/97 12:54:15] <UI>:
>This is STS-83 SAREX Robot station W5RRR-1
>onboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.
At 02:35 PM 7/9/97 -0500, Gil Carman, WA5NOM wrote from Houston:
>Pat, they are supposed to have it [the packet robot] set up
>now. Also, in case you haven't heard, the robot beacons
>still say STS-83 because the equipment stayed at KSC for the
>re-flight, and we didn't get a chance to re-initialize it.
Late acquisition of signal continues to be observed while the orbiter
attitude is roughly "tail down, main engines forward, port wing
tipped" with the SAREX antenna in Window 1. Most of the contacts
report AOS a minute or two after rise time due to the excessive squint
angle. The squint angle is the angle between the "main lobe" of the
antenna radiation pattern from Columbia and the ground station
location. After rise time, the observer's squint angle decreases as
the main lobe "sweeps" over the ground station, through time of
closest approach (TCA). As the orbiter sets, the squint angle is
increasing.
At approximately MET 14/14:00 (0800 UTC Wed July 16) the orbiter will
change its attitude to "bottom sun" for about 10 hours to warm its
tires for landing. Then Columbia will align its port wing into its
"velocity vector" or direction of flight (at approximately MET
15/00:00 or 1800 UTC Wed July 16). Optimum contact time within one's
pass will change with these changes in orbiter attitude.
Here is the current Columbia orbital element set from the NASA Johnson
Space Center in Houston, courtesy Gil Carman, WA5NOM.
STS-94
1 24849U 97032A 97196.60348696 .00069401 00000-0 19801-3 0 9174
2 24849 28.4723 277.2979 0003882 125.9485 234.1653 15.91403495 2224
Satellite: STS-94
Catalog number: 24849
Epoch time: 97196.60348696 = yrday.fracday
Element set: 917
Inclination: 28.4723 deg
RA of node: 277.2979 deg
Eccentricity: .0003882
Arg of perigee: 125.9485 deg
Mean anomaly: 234.1653 deg
Mean motion: 15.91403495 rev/day
Decay rate: 6.94010E-04 rev/day^2
Epoch rev: 222
Checksum: 354
Lift off time (UTC) : 1997/182:18: 1:59.9570
Tsinghua University, via AMSAT Telebridge station VK6IU in Australia,
failed to make contact with PS1 Roger Crouch on Rev 201. At the
scheduled time of the contact, the crew was busy in primary payload
work. The contact was rescheduled for another attempt.
At MET 12/15:26 (09:24 UTC July 14), the Tsinghua University in Beijing,
China, persevered and had a nice conversation with Dr. Crouch through
Gordon Williams, VK6IU, with David Chang, BY1QH, coordinating at the
university. On the prior attempt, the crew was scheduled to use
Window 6 for the SAREX cavity antenna. Despite the rough copy, eight
questions were answered. There were 30 in the audience, plus one TV
station and three newspapers present. Several government officials
were present and several officers from the Amateur Radio society
in China.
The DuBois Middle School in DuBois, Pennsylvania, had an outstanding
contact with PLT Susan Still on Rev 205 (MET 12/19:14 or 13:16 UTC
July 14). Albert Reid, N3JGT, provided coordination at the school
using callsign AA3OT. The AMSAT Telebridge Network ground station
providing communications was W5RRR in Houston with Brian Zemba, N1WSO,
and Larry Dietrich, WD8KUJ, as control operators. The school had 21
questions answered. There were up to 150 present with about half
being students. Also present in the Pennsylvania school were two
television stations, one radio station with live remote, and two
newspapers. The school's volunteer AMSAT Technical Mentor was Bill
Boston, N3DCI.
The SAREX Working Group thanked AMSAT volunteer Charlie Sufana, AJ9N,
in the SAREX CSR in Houston for the detailed reports of the school
results.
"STS-94 represents the 24th flight of the Shuttle Amateur Radio
Experiment (SAREX)" said SAREX Principal Investigator
Matt Bordelon, KC5BTL.
As his mission entered the home stretch, Columbia's Commander
Jim Halsell expressed thanks to all those on the ground who
prepared the shuttle, crew and payload for an unprecedented
repeat launch to complete work with the Microgravity Science
Laboratory. The first flight of Columbia with the laboratory,
then designated mission STS-83, was cut short this spring
due to a suspect fuel cell.
The SAREX payload is scheduled to be stowed at MET 14/10:30
(Wed 16 July 0432 UTC) in a middeck locker.
[Radio amateurs are encouraged to relay these SAREX bulletins to
their local packet BBS as long as the Bulletin IDentification (BID)
is preserved. The BID is the character string beginning with the
dollar sign ($), for example as in "SB SAREX @ AMSAT $STS-94.023"
without the quotation marks.]
Submitted by Pat Kilroy, WD8LAQ, for Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO, and the
SAREX Working Group.
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