[ANS] ANS-344 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

[Paul Stoetzer via ANS]

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE
ANS-344

In this edition:

* Proposal Submitted to ESA for Geostationary Microwave Amateur Payload
* ARISS Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Owen Garriott's STS-9 Operation
* AMSAT Publishes 2022 Financial Review and IRS Form 990
* Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution for December 7, 2023
* ARISS News
* Upcoming Satellite Operations
* Hamfests, Conventions, Maker Faires, and Other Events
* Satellite Shorts From All Over

The AMSAT News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and information
service of AMSAT, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes
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of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active
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ANS-344 AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins

To: All RADIO AMATEURS
>From: Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation
712 H Street NE, Suite 1653
Washington, DC 20002

DATE 2023 December 10

Proposal Submitted to ESA for Geostationary Microwave Amateur Payload

A proposal has been submitted to the European Space Agency (ESA) by
AMSAT-UK, the British Amateur Television Club (BATC), and AMSAT-NA, with
input from members of the UK Microwave Group for a geostationary microwave
amateur payload with planned coverage of at least part of North America.
This proposal was submitted in response to a presentation at the AMSAT-UK
Colloquium from Frank Zeppenfeldt, PD0AP, of ESA, who has secured €
250,000
in funding to investigate the possibility of an amateur satellite or
payload in geostationary orbit.

The proposal notes the desire for coverage of all ESA member and
cooperating states, but that it is not possible for a satellite in
geostationary orbit to cover the entirety of this territory, which ranges
from Cyprus at approximately 34 degrees east to western Canada at
approximately 141 degrees west and lays out example coverage from three
slots: 5 degrees west, 30 degrees west, and 47 degrees west. In a later
section, the proposal also discusses two non-geostationary orbit options
that could provide the desired coverage: a tundra orbit and a high earth
orbit just below the geostationary belt.

The amateur radio and educational payload proposed consists of two 5.6 GHz
uplink and 10 GHz downlink transponders (Mode C/x) - one 250 kHz wide with
20 watts of output for narrowband modes such as SSB, CW, and narrowband
digital mdoes and one 1 MHz wide with 20 watts of output for wideband
modes, including amateur television. The transponder design would include
an optional SDR block for signal regeneration. Additionally, a 24 GHz
receiver would also function as a transponder uplink. The proposal also
calls for a 47 or 74 GHz multimode beacon or additional downlink
transmitter, an earth-pointing camera with a still image downlink as part
of the telemetry or beacon for educational outreach, and a red or
near-infrared laser experiment aimed towards Western Europe. All downlink
signals would be phase coherent with timing by GPS reference or a
chip-scale atomic clock.

The full proposal text can be found at
https://www.amsat.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ESA-GEO-proposal
-AMSAT-UK.pdf

More information about the ESA opportunity can be found in PD0AP's AMSAT-UK
Colloquium presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?vÿTvlEyDa1Y

[ANS thanks AMSAT-UK, the British Amateur Television Club (BATC), AMSAT-NA,
and the UK Microwave Group for the above information]

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LAST CALL!

The 2023 AMSAT President's Club coins are still available!
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its launch
on June 16, 1983, this year's coin features
an image of AMSAT-OSCAR 10.
Join the AMSAT President's Club today and help
Keep Amateur Radio in Space!

https://www.amsat.org/join-the-amsat-presidents-club/

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ARISS Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Owen Garriott's STS-9 Operation

ARISS has been celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first ham in space.
On November 28, 1983, the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off with Owen
Garriott, W5LFL. Onboard was a specially customized Motorola MX-340 two
meter handheld radio and an antenna that attached to the shuttle's window.

Shortly before crossing the west coast on December 1, 1983, Columbia
executed a roll manuever that exposed the antenna toward earth and W5LFL
began to call CQ. At 02:38 UTC, Lance Collister, WA1JXN, in Frenchtown, MT
answered his CQ and made the first amateur radio QSO with a human in space.
A rush of QSOs followed over the next several days before Columbia returned
to Earth on December 8th. Among the amateur operators in the log were
Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA, and King Hussein of Jordan, JY1.

Videos including QSOs from orbit have been posted to the ARISS YouTube page
at https://www.youtube.com/@ARISSlive/videos

On December 7th, ARISS hosted a webinar with Owen's son, Richard Garriott,
W5KWQ, who later operated the amateur radio station aboard the
International Space Station. An archived video of the webinar can be found
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?vÿ0Jjn40Y_A

During the webinar, ARISS International Chair Frank Bauer, KA3HDO,
announced that Richard Garriott would be the keynote speaker at ARISS's
40th anniversary celebration event in February 2024. Details for this event
can be found at https://www.ariss.org/overview.html

Additionally, in celebration of the STS-9 mission, ARISS teams worldwide
have come together to prepare an SSTV event.

SSTV from the ISS will be sent on 145.800 MHz using the PD120 format.
Transmissions are scheduled to begin on December 16th at 10:15 UTC and end
on December 19th at around 18:00 UTC.

Melissa Gaskill, a science author from Austin, Texas, has written a
comprehensive review about the 40-year history of amateur radio in space.
In her article, "Ham Radio in Space: Engaging with Students Worldwide for
40 Years," Gaskill explores the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX),
which is now known as Amateur Radio on the International Space Station
(ARISS). The article can be found at
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/ham-radio-in-space-engag
ing-with-students-worldwide-for-40-years/

Gaskill said that while she wrote the article, she is not an expert on
thesubject but there are many who are including Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO,
International Space Station (ISS) Ham Project Coordinator since 2004.

Ransom said that amateur radio in space was a possibility even before 1983,
when Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL (SK), made history during the STS-9
Space Shuttle Columbia mission with the first amateur radio contact from
space. NASA had been looking for ways to bring amateur radio to Skylab (a
space station designed as an orbiting workshop for scientific research) and
even the moon.

[ANS thanks ARISS and the ARRL for the above information]