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ZL2VAL > SAREX 24.03.02 14:25l 101 Lines 3887 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : WF1F032302
Read: DH9MAG GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: Mir, 1 year ago today, 03/23/02
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Sent: 020324/1221Z @:ZL2WA.#60.NZL.OC #:46698 [NZ] FBB7.00g25 $:WF1F032302
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2WA.#60.NZL.OC
To : SAREX@WW
Mir Amateur Radio Status: March 23, 2002
Mir Retires, 1 year ago today
By Miles Mann WF1F,
MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)
Mir:
Mir's Retirement date March 23 2001
The Russian Space Station Mir was retired on March 23 2001, one year ago.
Who will push the Button?
Cosmonaut Vladimir Solovyov, who was a flight engineer on the very first
Mir mission (March 13, 1986), who helped bring Mir alive in 1986, will be
responsible for bringing the Mir project to an end. At approximately 0600
UTC on the 23rd, Vladimir Solovyov issued the command to fire the Mir
engines for one last time. Then approximately 30-45 minutes later, Mir
splashed down Pacific Ocean.
The chief of the Amateur Radio Cosmonaut Department, Sergej Samburov said,
"I have been working on Mir for 20 years,most of my life. It's like
loosing a close relative."
Samburov is responsible for approving all of the amateur radio experiments
on Mir and for several other Russian launched Amateur Radio projects.
The main parts of the Mir Station dived into a specific 50 x 100
miles spot in the Pacific Ocean. Some of the smaller lighter parts,
such as the solar panels will fragment into smaller pebble size chunks
and land over a wider area.
http://www.marex-na.org/images/mir_reentry.jpg
People living in Japan and New Zealand were be able to see the station as
it made is last fiery decent. In fiery trail of Ions will include not
only tons of expensive test equipment but it also included several amateur
radio projects, including:
Icom 228h 2-meter transceiver (SAFEX project)
Icom 70cm Repeater (SAFEX II)
Kenwood TM-733 dual band transceiver (SAFEX project)
Kenwood TM-V7A dual band transceiver (Marex SSTV system)
Kantronics KPC-9612 TNC (Marex Email system)
PacCom TNC (MIREX project)
And the first joint project between MIREX/MAREX/SAREX/ARRL/AMSAT was the
DCI RF Filter project.
The Mir Space Station may be gone, however her new Sibling, ISS Alpha
is doing very well. So when you look up in the sky, don't sad,
Mir's legacy will live on.
Post Card from Space
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amateur Radio operators frequently exchange postcards between radio
stations to confirm the 2-way radio contact. These post cards are called
QSL cards. I received a very special QSL card, which came directly from
the Russian Space Station Mir.
In 1999, on of my QSL cards flew into space on a Progress cargo rocket.
The three Mir crew members then signed the WF1F QSL card and placed ink
post-mark stamps on the back of the card, indicating the card was actually
on the Russian Space Station Mir. One of the stamps has the date August
28, 1999, which is the date the Mir crew undocked and left the Space
Station and came home to Earth. The card spent over a month in space (over
39 days) and traveled around the world 585 times (over 21 million miles in
space).
The QSL card was signed by :
French cosmonaut Jean-Pierre Heignere
Russian Cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev
Russian Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev
I would like to thank all of the Mir crew, Sergej Avdeyev, Viktro
Afanasyev and Jean-Pierre and the engineers at Energia, including
Sergej Samburov for making it possible for me to receive this
once in a life time gift. I am very pleased and proud to have been a
part of the successful and valuable Russian Space Amateur Radio program.
www.marex-na.org
Copyright 2001 Miles Mann, All Rights Reserved. This document may be
freely distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers),
Usenet, and World-Wide-Web. It may not be reproduced for profit including,
but not limited to, CD ROMs, books, and/or other commercial outlets without
prior written consent from the author.
Until we meet again
DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F
----
Via the sarex mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA.
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