AMSAT News Service
ANS-320
November 16, 2025
In this edition:
* BOTAN Digipeater Schedule a Challenge for U.S. Hams
* Launch Scrubbed Due to âHighly Elevated Solar Activityâ
* Alarm Over Reductions at Goddard Space Flight Center
* Comet Photos Plagued by Satellite Streaks
* Changes to AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution
* ARISS SSTV Event Continues
* ARISS News
* AMSAT Ambassador Activities
* 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 news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports
on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who
share an active interest in designing, building, launching and
communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.
The news feed on https://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.
Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor [at] amsat.org
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BOTAN Digipeater Schedule a Challenge for U.S. Hams
BOTAN, a 1U cubesat built by students of the Chiba Institute of
Technology in Japan, was deployed from the International Space Station
(ISS) on October 10 via the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) âKiboâ module.
The satellite carries an earth-observation camera downloading images
upon ground station command at 437.375 MHz. These downloads occur
primarily when the satellite is over Japan.
Information on the satellite may be found at https://sites.google.com/p.chibakoudai.jp/gardens-04/home-english?authuser=0
BOTAN also carries an APRS digipeater operating on 146.825 MHz. The
digipeater is also activated by ground station command. Although the
original design specifications called for the digipeater to remain
active for 720 minutes (12 hours) after activation, observations have
shown that it currently times out after 480 minutes (8 hours).
As a result, when the digipeater is activated by the command station
in Japan, it has timed out before passing over portions of North
America. Although the Chiba Institute has asked amateurs around the
world for telemetry downloads, the attempts to make use of the
satelliteâs services have been frustrating for North American amateurs.
BOTAN is next scheduled for digipeater activation on 2025-11-16 at
08:53 UTC (although current Keplerian data does not show the bird over
Japan until approximately half an hour after that time). Far west coast
U.S. and Mexican stations would be in the footprint briefly in the first
hour thereafter. The eight hour activation would end at 16:53 UTC.
During that period the satellite will pass over Asia, Australia, Africa,
Europe, and South America â but not over Central or North America.
Interested operators are encouraged to watch for schedule changes.
Masahiro Sanada, JI1IZR, has posted a nice blog about the station
setup he is using for BOTAN operation. The post may be found at https://ji1izr.cocolog-nifty.com/
[ANS thanks Chiba Institute of Technology and Masahiro Sanada, JI1IZR, Â for the above information.]
AMSAT Remove Before Flight Key Tags Now Available
Yes, These are the Real Thing!
Launch Scrubbed Due to âHighly Elevated Solar Activityâ
After terrestrial weather forced Blue
Origin to scrub its Sunday attempt to launch its 98-meter-tall (321 ft)
New Glenn rocket, unacceptable space weather prevented a launch attempt
on Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
In a post on social media, the company said
NASA made the call to stand down âdue to highly elevated solar activity
and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft.â
On Tuesday afternoon, NOAAâs Space Weather
Prediction Center forecast a G4 Severe Watch connected to a coronal mass
ejection first detected on Sunday, Nov. 9. It noted that this is just
the fourth G4 Watch issued this solar cycle, making it âvery rare,â and
added that impacts are expected âabout midday on Nov. 12.â

Aurora were visible across North America on the evening of November 11. Photo credit: Doug Arntson, KÃPX
A severe (G4) geomagnetic storm lit up
skies across the Northern Hemisphere overnight (Nov. 11-12), with vivid
northern lights visible across Canada, the U.S, and as far south as
Mexico.
The incredible display followed the arrival
of multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) â eruptions of magnetic field
and plasma from the sun â launched by sunspot AR4274, one of the most
energetic sunspot groups of the current solar cycle. The ongoing storm
ranks among the strongest of Solar Cycle 25 and last nightâs peak at G4
clocked in as the third strongest geomagnetic storm this solar cycle.
The first two CMEs struck in quick succession last night, compressing
Earthâs magnetic field and unleashing spectacular aurora shows that
lasted well into the night.

New
Glenn lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, carrying twin
Mars probes for NASA. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now.
Blue Origin finally launched its second
heavy-lift New Glenn rocket Thursday, Nov. 13, putting two small NASA
satellites onto a long, looping course to Mars to learn more about how
the sun has slowly blown away the red planetâs once thick atmosphere.
[ANS thanks spaceflight now and space.com for the above information. Read the full articles at:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/11/11/live-coverage-blue-origin-targets-nov-12-new-glenn-launch-following-weekend-weather-scrub/
https://www.space.com/stargazing/auroras/severe-geomagnetic-storm-sparks-northern-lights-across-north-america-and-as-far-south-as-mexico-photos.]
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Alarm Over Reductions at Goddard Space Flight Center
Alarm is growing among federal workers at NASAâs iconic Goddard Space
Flight Centerâs main campus in Greenbelt, Maryland â the nerve center
for groundbreaking missions like the Hubble and James Webb space
telescopes â as more than a dozen buildings on the campus are being
emptied and padlocked during the federal shutdown, with very little
notice to employees, said four sources who spoke to CNN on the condition
of anonymity for fear of retribution. NASA leadership has pushed back
against those concerns.
In one instance, furloughed employees were given just days to
temporarily return to work and help empty entire buildings of highly
specialized equipment, according to sources and internal emails obtained
by CNN. In the communications, NASA managers wrote that equipment not
moved in time â including one-of-a-kind hardware â could be thrown away
or donated.

A Hubble Space Telescope composite image shows a supernova explosion designated SN 2014J in the galaxy M82.
Photo Credit: NASA Goddard
In a statement, a NASA spokesperson said the building closures are
part of a âstrategic consolidationâ plan mapped out by Goddard leaders
that should not impact ongoing projects.
One document reviewed by CNN, which was compiled by more than a dozen
Goddard workers concerned about the steps taken at the campus, states
that 13 buildings are being shuttered, including about 100 laboratories.
The roughly 1,270-acre campus includes more than 30 large buildings and
dozens of smaller structures.
The changes described by sources have the space agencyâs engineers
concerned they could permanently lose access to equipment and facilities
that are crucial to keeping current and future projects on track.
[ANS thanks the CNNÂ for the above information. Read the full story at https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/04/science/nasa-goddard-building-closures-government-shutdown]

Comet Photos Plagued by Satellite Streaks
Recent months have seen space fans revel in a wealth of spectacular
astrophotography depicting the evolution of Comet Lemmonâs glowing coma
and twisting tail as it journeyed through a Northern Hemisphere night
sky swarming with satellites.
While many photographers opted to post sanitized views of Comet
Lemmon, others intentionally compiled their images to reveal the
incredible number of satellites that crossed the night sky over the
course of multiple exposures.

A
composite image of Comet Lemmon revealing where bright pixels were
rejected by an image-stacking algorithm. (Image credit: Dan Bartlett via
Space.com)
âPhotographically, if someone is attempting to take a single image of
a target and needs the image to be âcleanâ â free of manmade objects â
well, that image is nearly impossible to obtain,â astrophotographer Dan
Bartlett told Space.com in an email. âEvery single subframe I take
(prior to stacking) now contains at least one, and usually more than one
satellite streak.â
There are currently about 13,000 operational satellites orbiting
Earth, of which about 8,900 are SpaceX Starlink craft. This number is
set to exponentially increase, with SpaceX alone aiming to orbit up to
42,000 of its internet-beaming spacecraft, while competing companies aim
to add thousands more satellites to their own âmegaconstellations.â
Astrophotographers combat satellite streaks by capturing a multitude
of short exposures over the course of a single session. The images are
then combined and subjected to an algorithm that determines a median
value for each pixel before rejecting outlier pixels with values that
exceed set parameters.
[ANS thanks Space.com for the above information. Read the full article at https://www.space.com/stargazing/astrophotography/comet-lemmon-photos-are-plagued-by-satellite-streaks-heres-how-amateur-astronomers-face-the-problem .]
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Changes to AMSAT TLE Distribution for November 14, 2025
Two Line Elements or TLEs, often referred to as Keplerian elements or
keps in the amateur community, are the inputs to the SGP4 standard
mathematical model of spacecraft orbits used by most amateur tracking
programs. Weekly updates are completely adequate for most amateur
satellites. TLE bulletin files are updated daily in the first hour of
the UTC day. New bulletin files will be posted immediately after
reliable elements become available for new amateur satellites. More
information may be found at https://www.amsat.org/keplerian-elements-resources/.
The following satellite has been removed from this weekâs AMSAT distribution:
ENSO â NORAD Cat ID 58470 Decayed from orbit on or about 09 November 2025
The following satellite has been added to this weekâs AMSAT distribution:
CEVROSAT1 â Provisional ID 98526 Note:
Resource constraints at USSF 18SDS evidently are preventing generation
of TLE for this satellite. The element set provided is unusally poor,
expect the satellite to pass a minute or more away from predictions.
[ANS thanks Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, AMSAT Orbital Elements Manager, for the above information.]
ARISS SSTV Event Continues
The worldwide Amateur Radio on the International Space Station
(ARISS) team and the global family of ham radio enthusiasts celebrated
25 years of continuous amateur radio operations on the International
Space Station (ISS) on November 13, 2025.
Only eleven days after the Expedition 1 crew took up residence on ISS
the crew turned on the ham radio system and began speaking with teams
in Star City Russia, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland, and the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Throughout it all volunteer ARISS team members have worked side by
side with space agencies and astronauts and cosmonauts around the world
to develop, certify, launch and operate the ham radio systems that
enable creation of an amateur radio bridge between people on earth and
spacefarers in orbit.
During 25 years of continuous operations, ARISS has connected 1
million kids in classrooms and information educational settings to the
ISS through nearly 1,800 ham radio contacts. Itâs all about Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) educational opportunities.
Maximum value is added by working with educators to ensure that their
students learn about space science, living and working in space, ISS
research and radio communications. This educational element starts 4-6
months before the ARISS contact.
When the time comes for their once-in-a-lifetime radio contact with
the ISS, they use an amateur radio ground station at their host
organization or one of our international ground stations to talk
directly to the astronauts and cosmonauts on ISSâLIVE!
There are two amateur radio stations on ISS, one in the Columbus
Module and one in the Service Module, supporting 24/7 communications
with hams on the ground via voice and digital repeaters in space. ARISS
also provides opportunities for youth and radio amateurs to downlink
pictures, called Slow Scan Television (SSTV), from ISS as well as
standard Television downlinks using our HamTV system and our L/S-Band
antennas.
Itâs important to note that these amateur radio systems are
completely independent from the ISS communications systems. Because of
that, they also serve as a pivotal ISS backup communications capability.
If the main ISS communications systems fail or are rendered unusable,
our flight hardware and ground operations team is ready to spring into
action 24/7.
As we cross the threshold of 25 years of continuous operations on ISS
and look forward to many more, ARISS will begin a one-year
commemoration of its achievements. Several interactive initiatives for
youth, educators, ham radio operators and the public are planned. Stay
tuned to the ARISS website and social media channels to find out what
what is planned. As reported in AMSAT News Service bulletins
last week, the first commemorative event is already underwayâan SSTV
(picture downlink) event that started November 12 and runs through
November 19.
[ANS thanks Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, ARISS International Chair, ARISS-USA Executive Director, for the above information.]
ARISS News
Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on contacts
between amateurs operating in schools and allowing students to interact
with astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station.
The downlink frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz worldwide.
Recently Completed
Colegio Del Faro, BenavÃdez, Tigre, Argentina, direct via LU4BB
The ISS callsign was OR4ISS
The scheduled crewmember was Mike Fincke KE5AIT
The ARISS mentor was VE3TBD
Contact was successful: Tue 2025-11-11 18:18:56 UTC 51 degrees maximum elevation
Congratulations to the Colegio Del Faro students, Mike, mentor VE3TBD, and ground station LU4BB!
Scheduled Contacts
SPACE Academy of Azercosmos, Baku, Azerbaijan, direct via 4K4AZE
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be OR4ISS
The scheduled crewmember is Mike Fincke KE5AIT
The ARISS mentor is SP3QFE
Contact is go for: Sun 2025-11-16 14:53:03 UTC 28 degrees maximum elevation
Russian school TBD, direct via TBD
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be RSÃISS
The scheduled crewmember is Oleg Platonov
The ARISS mentor is RV3DR
Contact is go for Tue 2025-11-18 10:10 UTC
Escuela Jose Marti, Mexico City, Mexico, telebridge via IK1SLD
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be TBD
The scheduled crewmember is Zena Cardman KJ5CMN
The ARISS mentor is VE3TBD
Contact is go for: Wed 2025-11-19 15:34:03 UTC 55 degrees maximum elevation
Russian school TBD, direct via TBD
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be RSÃISS
The scheduled crewmember is Oleg Platonov
The ARISS mentor is RV3DR
Contact is go for Thu 2025-11-20 14:50 UTC
Many times a school may make a last minute
decision to do a Livestream or run into a last minute glitch requiring a
change of the URL but we at ARISS may not get the URL in time for
publication.  You can always check https://live.ariss.org/ to see if a school is Livestreaming.
As always, if there is an EVA, a docking, or an undocking; the ARISS radios are turned off as part of the safety protocol.
The crossband repeater continues to be active
(145.990 MHz up {PL 67} & 437.800 MHz down), If any crewmember is
so inclined, all they have to do is pick up the microphone, raise the
volume up, and talk on the crossband repeater. So give a listen, you
just never know.
Packet operations (145.825 MHz up & down) suspended for SSTV (145.800 MHz down) until November 20.
Ham TV is configured for scheduled digital amateur television operations (2395.00 MHz).
Note, all times are approximate. It is recommended that you do your
own orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the
listed time.
The latest information on the operation mode can be found at https://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss-stations.html
The latest list of frequencies in use can be found at https://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html
[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, one of the ARISS operation team mentors for the above information.]
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AMSAT Ambassador Activities
AMSAT Ambassadors provide presentations, demonstrate communicating
through amateur satellites, and host information tables at club
meetings, hamfests, conventions, maker faires, and other events.
None currently scheduled.
Interested in becoming an AMSAT Ambassador? AMSAT Ambassadors provide
presentations, demonstrate communicating through amateur satellites,
and host information tables at club meetings, hamfests, conventions,
maker faires, and other events.
For more information go to:Â https://www.amsat.org/ambassador/
[ANS thanks Bo Lowrey, W4FCL, Director â AMSAT Ambassador Program, for the above information.]
Satellite Shorts from All Over
+ Amazon is rebranding its âProject Kuiperâ constellation of
satellites in low Earth orbit. The program will now be known as âAmazon
Leo.â There are now 153 Kuiper satellites satellites in orbit, intended
to provide high-speed internet connections worldwide. (ANS thanks Amazon
for the above information.)
+ LambdaVision, a biotech company, has flown nine missions to the
ISS, where it produced a 200-layer protein thin film as a precursor to
an artificial retina implants. Most recently, the company won a NASA
Phase 2 In Space Production Applications award in September to continue
developing the companyâs in-space manufacturing process â in this case,
in partnership with microgravity research firm Space Tango. (ANS thanks
PayloadSpace.com for the above information. See the full article at https://payloadspace.com/lambdavision-closes-7m-seed-round-to-make-retinas-in-leo/.)
+ Three Chinese astronauts returned from their nationâs space station
Friday after more than a weekâs delay because the return capsule they
had planned to use was damaged, likely from being hit by space debris.
The team left their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft in orbit and came back using
the recently arrived Shenzhou-21, which had ferried a three-person
replacement crew to the station, Chinaâs Manned Space Agency said. The
original return plan was scrapped because a window in the Shenzhou-20
capsule had tiny cracks, most likely caused by impact from space debris,
the space agency said Friday. (ANS thanks the Associated Press for the
above information. Read the full story at https://apnews.com/article/china-space-station-stranded-crew-shenzhou-e266f7106491b587e60d303068973761)
+ SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink broadband satellites
November 10 on a Falcon 9 rocket. It was the 94th orbital mission so far
this year from Cape Kennedy, breaking 2024âs record of 93 launches. A
SpaceX executive said at a conference recently that he expected the
company to finish the year with 165 to 170 Falcon 9 launches, which
would also be a record. The total number of Starlink satellites launched
so far in 2025 is 2,600. And the yearâs not over yet. (ANS thanks
SpaceNews Editorâs Choice newsletter for the above information.)
In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership to:
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- Students under age 25 are eligible for free membership.
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Contact info [at] amsat.org for additional membership information.
73 and remember to help Keep Amateur Radio in Space!
This weekâs ANS Editor,
Mark Johns, KÃJM
mjohns [at] amsat.org
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