Date: January 23rd 2011

AMSAT NEWS SERVICE ANS-023

ANS is a free, weekly, news and information service of AMSAT North America, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation ANS 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

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor@amsat org

In this edition:

ARISSat-1 Loaded Aboard Progress-41P for Launch on January 28
AO-51 Power Management Update
NanoSail-D Feared Lost Now Active - Amateur Radio Reports Requested
Marshall Amateur Radio Club Confirms NanoSail-D Beacon Active
January AMSAT India Newsletter - CubeSat Transponder Announced
ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli Speaks with Italian Youth via ARISS
Last Call: OSCAR SKN Best Fist Nominations Are Due
Satellite Shorts From All Over
Next Winners From PayPal Widget Announced
HI0RCD Special Events Station Plans AO-51 Operation
Donation to AMSAT via Required Minimum Distribution Option

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 01 ARISSat-1 Loaded Aboard Progress-41P for Launch on January 28

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 01

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 01

The ARISSat-1 space craft is mounted in the Progress vehicle at Baikonur and the hatch sealed Progress 41P is scheduled to lift off next Friday, 28 January 2011 Due to the launch of STS-133, the EVA to deploy ARISSat-1 has been moved up to 16 February 2011

The NASA Phase 3 Safety Review for ARISSat-1 was held Thursday morn- ing, 19 Jan 2011 in Houston There were three items that did not have complete paperwork; Energia and the US teams are working to clear this up by early next week

A NASA press release describes the plans for ARISSat-1 in an article about planned Russian EVAs from the ISS: http://tinyurl com/6kceotn (nasa gov)

Bob, N4HY reports that NASA TV (http://www nasa gov/ntv) has run a program featuring ARISSat-1 Watch for repeat playback

[ANS thanks ARISSat-1 Project Manager Gould Smith, WA4SXM, and NASA for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 02 AO-51 Power Management Update

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 02

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 02

AO-51 Control Operator, Mark Hammond, N8MH reported this week, "The satellite continues to be in good operating condition thanks to good power management "

The Control Team continues to make adjustments and refinements in the specific settings While AO-51 is in the sun its downlink power output remains strong at around 1 3 W output The transmitters are OFF while in eclipse

The current schedule is planned to continue through the end of Feb- ruary 2011, when the satellite will return to full sunlight again The current AO-51 operating mode is:

Single FM Repeater: Uplink: 145 920 MHz FM Downlink: 435 300 MHz FM

The AO-51 Command Team requests that users continue to post their observations of AO-51's operating condition on the Live OSCAR Satel- lite Status Page: http://oscar dcarr org/index php

Keep up to date with the latest Command Team and Operations Group AO-51 News at: http://www amsat org/amsat-new/echo/CTNews php

[ANS thanks Mark, N8MH, for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 03 NanoSail-D Feared Lost Now Active - Amateur Radio Reports Requested

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 03

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 03

[Editor note: The NanoSail-D satellite launched with the NASA FASTSAT mission from Kodiak It had appeared to not have been ejected and subsequently not activated This week NASA said that telemetry from FASTSAT now indicated that NanoSail-D was now active and issued the following press release ]

NANOSAIL-D EJECTS; NASA SEEKS AMATUER RADIO OPERATORS' AID TO LISTEN
FOR BEACON SIGNAL

HUNTSVILLE, Ala - Wednesday, Jan 19 at 11:30 a m EST, engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala , confirmed that the NanoSail-D nanosatellite ejected from Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite, FASTSAT The ejection event occurred spontan- eously and was identified this morning when engineers at the center analyzed onboard FASTSAT telemetry The ejection of NanoSail-D also has been confirmed by ground-based satellite tracking assets

Amateur ham operators are asked to listen for the signal to verify NanoSail-D is operating This information should be sent to the NanoSail-D dashboard at: http://nanosaild engr scu edu/dashboard htm The NanoSail-D beacon signal can be found at 437 270 MHz

The NanoSail-D science team is hopeful the nanosatellite is healthy
and can complete its solar sail mission After ejection, a timer with- in NanoSail-D begins a three-day countdown as the satellite orbits the Earth Once the timer reaches zero, four booms will quickly deploy and the NanoSail-D sail will start to unfold to a 100-square-foot polymer sail Within five seconds the sail fully unfurls

"This is great news for our team We're anxious to hear the beacon
which tells us that NanoSail-D is healthy and operating as planned", said Dean Alhorn, NanoSail-D principal investigator and aerospace engineer at the Marshall Center "The science team is hopeful to see that NanoSail-D is operational and will be able to unfurl its solar sail "

On December 6, 2010, NASA triggered the planned ejection of NanoSail-D
from FASTSAT At that time, the team confirmed that the door success- fully opened and data indicated a successful ejection Upon further
analysis, no evidence of NanoSail-D was identified in low-Earth orbit, leading the team to believe NanoSail-D remained inside FASTSAT

The FASTSAT mission has continued to operate as planned with the five other scientific experiments operating nominally

"We knew that the door opened and it was possible that NanoSail-D
could eject on its own," said Mark Boudreaux, FASTSAT project manager at the Marshall Center "What a pleasant surprise this morning when our flight operations team confirmed that NanoSail-D is now a free flyer "

If the deployment is successful, NanoSail-D will stay in low-Earth
orbit between 70 and 120 days, depending on atmospheric conditions
NanoSail-D is designed to demonstrate deployment of a compact solar sail boom system that could lead to further development of this alternative solar sail propulsion technology and FASTSAT's ability to eject a nano-satellite from a micro-satellite - while avoiding re-contact with the FASTSAT satellite bus

Follow the NanoSail-D mission operation on Twitter at: http://twitter com/nanosaild

For additional information on the timeline of the NanoSail-D
deployment visit: http://www nasa gov/pdf/501204main_NSD2_timeline_sequence pdf

To learn more about FASTSAT and the NanoSail-D missions visit: http://www nasa gov/mission_pages/smallsats

NanoSail-D is predicted to be visible once the sail is unfurled The site at http://www heavens-above com has a link for the pre- dicted viewing times and sky coordinates to find NanoSail-D at your location

[ANS thanks Dave Taylor, W8AAS and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 04 Marshall Amateur Radio Club Confirms NanoSail-D Beacon Active

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 04

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 04

The Marshall Amateur Radio Club, WA4NZD late Wednesday afternoon, January 19, 2011, confirmed ejection of the NanoSail-D sub-satel- lite This loaf-of-bread sized spacecraft was carried to orbit late last year on an Air Force rocket as part of NASA's FastSat project This is the first successful deployment of a satellite, launched from a satellite already in orbit! The only communication from the NanoSail-D vehicle is via ham radio with 1200 baud FM AX25 beacon packets

The WA4NZD team of N4PMF and WB5RMG, was listening on 437 275 MHz FM with the NanoSail-D Principal Investigator Dean Alhorn at the club station when the beacon was heard and susbequently decoded onto the screen Please visit http://wa4nzd wordpress com for pictures and more links to the NanoSail-D project They are asking for telemetry reception reports from all over the world to help fill in gaps The battery is expected to last for only three days

The NanoSail-D mission page contains the latest tracking data and a link to report received packet telemetry data: http://nanosaild engr scu edu/dashboard htm

Details on the format of the packet data downlink are presented in a PDF document at: http://tinyurl com/6497q84 (scu edu)

An example of received packets from NanoSail-D: Fm KE7EGC To UNDEF Via TELEM [22:55:45] NanoSailD org 8C0F0000A21400000004008A890200004939C37ACFC0000000

UniverseToday com also carried a story: http://tinyurl com/4etefaa In another story on UniverseToday the NanoSail-D data capture video by Henk, PA3GUO is featured at: http://www universetoday com/82733/success-nanosail-d-deploys/

John, VE8EV wrote from Inuvik, Canada to provide a link describing his successful telemetry capture to confirm the deployment of the NanoSail-D solar sail: http://ve8ev blogspot com/2011/01/nanosat-d-sailing-new-sea html This page describes a novel approach to decoding telemetry by using an Excel spreadsheet

AMSAT's Keeper of the Keps, Ray Hoad, WA5QGD says the KEPs for NANOSAIL-D are now being updated with the label NANOSALD

[ANS thanks Alan Sieg, WB5RMG and the Marshall Amateur Radio Club, WA4NZD; John, VE8EV, and UniverseToday com for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 05 January AMSAT India Newsletter - CubeSat Transponder Announced

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 05

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 05

This week AMSAT India Secretary Nitin, VU3TYG announced that the AMSAT India January 2011 news letter is available for download The PDF of the newsletter is at: http://amsatindia org/Newsletter/AMSATINDIA-News-January2011 pdf

This month's newsletter includes an announcement by AMSAT India Technical Director Pop, VU2POP, regarding the latest developments with their CubeSat transponder Pop wrote, "I have immense pleasure in announcing that the initial design of the transponder has been completed and the components have been procured "

Features of the AMSAT India CubeSat transponder include:

435 250 MHz uplink and downlink, half-duplex UHF narrow-band FM transceiver
FSK/MSK baseband for 1200-9600 baud operation
Supports AX 25 or user-defined frame formats supported
Transmitter output power 1 Watt
Super heterodyne receiver with Packet reception sensitivity to -120 dBm at 1200 bps
On-board measurement of TXO and PA temperatures, battery voltage, and RSSI and RF-error on receiver
Downlink of configurable content (text and measurements)
Autonomous audio Morse beacon when idle
Compatible with the Cube sat Kit "PC104" form factor with the first set of PCBs ordered for the engineering model

Pop concluded, "Thanks to my team for their great focus in spite of their busy schedule and Ganesan (KJ6LRR) for his efforts in this baby step which we have taken in this domain Look out for more updates in our future News letters "

The full list of specifications and an engineering CAD drawing of the CubeSat transponder PCB can be found in the AMSAT India January newsletter link The newsletter archives can be obtained on-line at: http://www amsatindia org/Newsletter

[ANS thanks AMSAT India for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 06 ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli Speaks with Italian Youth via ARISS

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 06

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 06

On Saturday, January 15, students attending the Istituto Comprensivo Via Toscana 2 in Civitavecchia, Italy took part in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli, IZÃƒÂƒÃ‚Â˜JPA

Nespoli answered 12 questions during the first ISS pass On the following pass, he completed the students' questions and exchanged greetings with Italian Space Agency President Enrico Saggese Nespoli also talked about the importance of school contacts as well as the 10th anniversary of ARISS contacts in both Italian and English The event was attended by 300 people and was covered by national tele- vision and other media

[ANS thanks Carol Jackson, KB3LKI and the January 17, 2011 ARISS Status Report for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 07 Last Call: OSCAR SKN Best Fist Nominations Are Due

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 07

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 07

Ray, W2RS thanks all who participated in AMSAT's Straight Key Night on OSCAR 2011 Please remember to nominate someone you worked for 'Best Fist ' Your nominee need not have the best fist of those you heard, just of those you worked Nominations should be sent to w2rs@amsat org A list of those nominated will be published in ANS in early February, and in a forthcoming issue of The AMSAT Journal

[ANS thanks Ray, W2RS for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 08 Satellite Shorts From All Over

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 08

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 08

Congratulations to Tom, KA6SIP for earning ARRL VUCC #208, and to Jim, K0BAM for earning ARRL VUCC #209
The February Scientific American magazine has an article about Cubesats entitled "Citizen Satellites" on pages 48-53 by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang and Bob Twiggs Many of you know Bob Twiggs as KE6QMD, a long-time AMSAT supporter who is widely known as having been "father" of the Cubesat concept when he was at Stanford Uni- versity Bob is now a Professor at Moorehead State Univ in Kentucky
AMSAT Manger, Martha says you can own a piece of AMSAT history She has the following software available for a minimum donation of $5 00: <> Atari W3IWI (1985) 5 1/4 disk <> AMSAT AMS-81 (1986) for Sinclair computers - Cassette <> W3IWI Basic Orbits for I-99 (1985) - Cassette <> UoSat 1 & 2 Telemetry Capture Editing and Decoding program for IBM - 5 1/4 disk <> W3IWI Orbit Prediction Program for TRS-80 Color Computer - Cassette <> AMSAT 2064 Tracking Program (1984) - Cassette <> ORBITS II for IBM (1993) - 3 1/2 disk <> N4HY QuikTrak for IBM - 3 1/2 disk

If you are interested send your order to:
AMSAT, 850 Sligo Ave, #600, Silver Spring MD 20910
AMSAT-UK has introduced a new online shop for satellite ground station hardware and software: http://tinyurl com/AMSAT-UK-Shop
The AMSAT-UK FUNcube Amateur Radio satellite project is now on Facebook and Twitter Go to http://www facebook com just lookup FUNcube Twitter: http://www twitter com/FUNcubeUK You can join the FUNcube Yahoo Group at: http://groups yahoo com/group/FUNcube/ FUNcube website: http://www FUNcube org uk/ FUNcube SDR Dongle: http://www FUNcubeDongle com/
Print Your 10th Anniversary International Space Station Calendar: NASAÃƒÂ‚Ã‚Â’s International Space Station calendar is now available in both large and small file sizes to print at home, or with the help of a professional printer To print it out on your home printer, download the 6 8 Mb file To print it out in full resolution, take the link to the 74 Mb file to your preferred printer and specify the paper quality and printing instructions The link to these files is on NASA's web at: http://www nasa gov/mission_pages/station/main/index html
For hams who experiment with space communications the latest VK3UM EME Calculator update (Ver 7 08) is now available Download direct from http://www vk3um com
Space Adventures expects to resume tourist visits to the space sta- tion starting in 2013 The company does not discuss costs, but a seat on a Soyuz is believed to run between $30 million and $40 million Full story at: http://spaceflightnow com/news/n1101/12soyuz/
Science in the shack! Participate in real space research from your shack The January 10, 2011 edition of the One Minute Astronomer describes an astronomy project which may be of interest to many scientifically oriented amateur radio operators You are invited to become a Planet Hunter to aid in the search for exoplanets: http://www oneminuteastronomer com/2011/01/10/planet-hunter/ Additionally, the http://www zooniverse org/ site has several other opportunities for amateur scientists to participate in research
Tom, K8CX, has posted his collection of DX Sound Bites at: http://hamgallery com/dx2010
To celebrate the January 3, 2011 7th Anniversary on Mars for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers Glen Nagle created a downloadable poster The poster includes scenes from both Spirit's and Oppor- tunity's adventures Download your copy from: http://tinyurl com/2aua69c (UniverseToday com)
The latest information, photos, and videos of Vietnam's planned F-1 Cubesat are posted on-line at: http://www facebook com/group php?gid=116436068290
John, VE3YUL reports that UO-11 was heard in darkness with a strong signal received on his handheld radio at 21:12 local on January 20, 2011 on the 145 825 MHz downlink

[ANS thanks everyone for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 09 Next Winners From PayPal Widget Announced

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 09

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 09

AMSAT-NA VP Operations, Drew KO4MA said this week, "We've randomly selected the next group of prize winners from those that have donated via the Paypal widget For every $250 dollars raised we randomly pick a donor to receive a prize from the AMSAT prize closet:

$1750-$2000 Robert Benton W7VB $2000-$2250 Kevin Schuchmann WA6FWF $2250-$2500 Nigel Gunn W8IFF

Thank you to all that have donated to pay for the construction of ARISSat-1 and the beginning of the AMSAT-Fox project ARISSat-1 is featured in this month's QST, and AMSAT-Fox is described by the VP Engineering in the current issue of the AMSAT Journal "

If you have an amateur radio website or blog, you too can help AMSAT raise the money required to pay for construction of these two satel- lites by adding the widget code to your site You can even add it to your QRZ com entry Contact Drew at KO4MA@amsat org for details You can see the widget at http://www amsat org

[ANS thanks Drew, KO4MA for the above information]

/EX

SB SAT @ AMSAT $ANS-023 10 HI0RCD Special Events Station Plans AO-51 Operation

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 10

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS BID: $ANS-023 10

The Radio Club Dominicano invites satellite operators to look for their special event station HI0RCD via AO-51 as they commemorate "The Month of the Patria" beginning on January 26, 2011 and ending on February 27, 2011 at 23:59 UTC

January 26 marks the birthday of Juan Pablo Duarte, the Father of the Patria February 27 marks the 167th anniversary of Dominican independence

A special QSL card will be available via the bureau In addition to the planned AO-51 operation HI0RCD plans to also operate on 160, 80, 40, 20, 17, 15, and 10 meters using SSB, CW, and digital modes

Luis, HI8LAM has also posted information of the special event station on his blog at: http://www hi8lam blogspot com/

[ANS thanks Luis, HI8LAM for the above information]

/EX

AMSAT News Service Bulletin - 023 11 Donation to AMSAT via Required Minimum Distribution Option

AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 11

From AMSAT HQ SILVER SPRING, MD January 23, 2011 To All RADIO AMATEURS AMSAT News Service Bulletin 023 11

[Editor Note: This bulletin header has been modified so that its content will not be automatically forwarded via packet bulletins It contains a fundraising message which may not be allowed in some jurisdictions and discusses income tax provisions applicable to the United States This message will appear in the e-mail release of the ANS-023 bulletins only ]

We're all getting older and many of us have reached the age of 70-1/2 when of us U S taxpayers must begin withdrawing funds from our IRAs It's called Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Of course, the amount withdrawn is counted as income and hence U S income Tax is due on that amount plus whatever other income the person has

In the past several years, there has been a provision in the IRS Tax Code which allowed U S taxpayers to contribute a portion of the RMD to a charity and NOT have that portion be counted as taxable income

That provision was due to expire for Tax Year 2010 but at the last minute, the new tax legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President included a provision reinstating it

Normally, such charitable donations had to be made from the institution holding the IRA funds to the charity without passing through the hands of the RMD recipient But, since the new tax legislation was not signed into law until December 17th, a special provision was included for the 2010 Tax Year only, allowing these contributions to be made directly by the person receiving them to the charity as long as they are made by January 31, 2011

Thus, according to this provision, those of us who have already rece- ived RMDs for 2010 have until that end of this month to make much need- ed contributions to AMSAT and NOT have that amount counted as income in calculating the federal income tax due for the 2010 Tax Year

Note that AMSAT is NOT a tax consultant and is NOT empowered to furnish tax advice The information presented here was obtained from news re- leases from several other reliable charities and is, to the best of our knowledge, reliable Nevertheless, it is always best to consult your own tax advisor

[ANS thanks the AMSAT Board of Directors for the above information]

/EX

In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership in the President's Club Members of the President's Club, as sustaining donors to AMSAT Project Funds, will be eligible to receive additional benefits Application forms are available from the AMSAT Office And with that please keep in mind, the ham who decided to take up outdoor activities for the new year He started by trying to play catch and wondered why the baseball was getting bigger then it hit him Next he tried throwing a boomerang He couldn't quite remember how it worked, but then it came back to him Next up was hurdle jumping but he always had a fear of hurdles, but got over it Finally, he tried rowing but being an indecisive person he couldn't choose either oar

73, This week's ANS Editor, JoAnne Maenpaa, K9JKM K9JKM at amsat dot org

Via the ANS mailing list courtesy of AMSAT-NA http://amsat org/mailman/listinfo/ans

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