| |
WD8LAQ > SAREX 20.07.99 16:01l 130 Lines 5232 Bytes #-9656 (0) @ AMSAT
BID : STS-93.001
Read: OE8HSK GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: STS-93 SAREX Bulletin 1: Columbia Ready
Path: DB0AAB<DB0PV<DB0MAK<OK0PKL<OK0PPR<SP6KBL<SP6YCU<SR3BLS<SR3DZG<SR1BBS<
SP1KKO
Sent: 990720/1237z @:SP1KKO [Club TP SA Szczecin JO73GK op:SP1LOP] BCM1.41a
From: WD8LAQ @ SP1KKO
To: SAREX @ AMSAT
Silver Spring, Maryland USA
July 19, 1999 @ 2300 UTC
Columbia Ready for the Final SAREX Flight
Just a few hours before launch, operations continue on schedule
for space shuttle Columbia on STS-93, the brief five-day mission
on which the Chandra X-Ray Observatory will be deployed.
According to Reuters news service, Chandra, named for late Indian-
born Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chanrasekhar, known as Chandra to
his friends, will study X-ray emissions from distant stars and
galaxies that are largely undetectable from earth because of
atmospheric distortion.
STS-93 is the 25th and final flight of the Space Amateur Radio
EXperiment (SAREX) on the space shuttle. Amateur Radio in human
space flight will continue the fine tradition set by the shuttle
and space station Mir by soon boarding the International Space
Station. This will take the form of the multinational Amateur
Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS).
As in previous SAREX missions, crew members will take turns making
scheduled 2-way radio contacts with schools, random radio contacts
with Amateur Radio operators, and a few personal contacts with
their families.
Five schools are scheduled to talk with the astronauts using ham
radio frequencies and the volunteer-based AMSAT Telebridge Network.
The primary goal of the SAREX and ARISS programs is to excite the
students' interest in science, technology, mathematics and the
U.S. and international space program.
To find out when Columbia will be in your radio range, a
satellite tracking program for your personal computer can be
obtained from the AMSAT web site at
<http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftpsoft.html#pc-trk> or other
sources, or watch for SAREX Rise/Set times in coming SAREX
bulletins.
Here is a pre-launch set of the estimated orbital elements from
Gil Carman, WA5NOM, that describes the orbit during the time
period when the school contacts and most of the amateur radio
operations are to take place:
STS-093
1 99093U 99202.11969685 .00195261 00000-0 45118-3 0 39
2 99093 28.4716 190.1407 0001364 70.2068 289.8869 15.95498675 165
Satellite: STS-093
Catalog number: 99093
Epoch time: 99202.11969685 = (21-Jul-1999 02:52:21.808 UTC)
Element set: 003
Inclination: 28.4716 deg
RA of node: 190.1407 deg Space Shuttle Flight STS-093
Eccentricity: .0001364 Prelaunch element set JSC-003
Arg of perigee: 70.2068 deg Launch: 20-Jul-1999 04:36:00 UTC
Mean anomaly: 289.8869 deg
Mean motion: 15.95498675 rev/day Gil Carman
Decay rate: 1.95261e-03 rev/day^2 NASA Johnson Space Center
Epoch rev: 16
Checksum: 346
Deorbit: 25-Jul-1999 02:31 UTC (orbit 79) MET 04/21:55
Landing: 25-Jul-1999 03:23 UTC (orbit 80) MET 04/22:47
Introducing the crew of Columbia on STS-93:
Commander (CDR) Eileen Collins, KD5EDS
Pilot (PLT) Jeffrey Ashby
Mission Specialist 1 (MS1) Cady Coleman, KC5ZTH
Mission Specialist 2 (MS2) Steven Hawley
Mission Specialist 3 (MS3) Michel Tognini, KD5EJZ
Frequencies in MHz (FM):
Uplink Downlink
Packet 144.49 145.80
European voice 144.49 145.80
Voice (except over Europe) 144.47 145.80
Voice (except over Europe) 144.45 145.80
School contacts varies 145.80
Outside Europe, pick one of the two voice frequencies at random.
NOTES:
SAREX voice and packet radio operations will begin before the
first school contact which occurs early in Flight Day 2.
Gil Carman, WA5NOM, says the crew has expressed a preference for
voice mode over packet during the periods when they are awake,
with the packet robot on only during sleep periods. All passes
over the continental U.S. are during their awake shifts, and
all sleep passes will be over Asia and South America. So, U.S.
stations may have few packet opportunities on this flight.
Please listen on the downlink for the crew to call CQ. If the
crewperson is in the middle of a QSO please wait until they are
done.
Packet: Connect to W5RRR-1 and you will get a packet connect
number from the robot mode. Please do this only once. Connecting
multiple times only deprives others of a chance to participate.
Turn on monitoring to see who else is working the robot mode and
to get status messages from the SAREX packet rig.
Please do not connect to other ground stations through the
SAREX packet rig.
Timely and highly valuable information is being released by
Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, on the anticipated SAREX packet radio
operations and APRS opportunities. Watch for his posts to the
sarex@amsat.org e-mail list
<http://www.amsat.org/amsat/listserv/menu.html> and various
TAPR and APRS mail lists
<http://www.tapr.org/tapr/html/sigf.html>, and news in
these SAREX bulletins <http://sarex.gsfc.nasa.gov>.
Bulletin updates will be released periodically through the mission.
You may also check <http://garc.gsfc.nasa.gov/~kc6rol/sts93.html>
for late braking news.
Submitted by Pat Kilroy, WD8LAQ, for Will Marchant, KC6ROL, and
the SAREX Working Group.
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
