Minutes of ARISS-I meeting
ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
April 20, 2021 – 1100 UTC

Participants:
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Shizuo Endo
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter
Bertus Husken
John Kludt
Chet Latawiec
Glenn MacDonell
Keigo Komuro
Ciaran Morgan
Martha Muir
Ken Nichols
Eric Oosterbaan
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
 
Interpreter: Olga Porter
 
Unable to attend:
 
Fabio Azzarello
Kerry Banke
Jean-Pierre Courjaud
Darin Cowan
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Stefan Dombrowski
Gianpietro Ferrario
Tony Hutchinson
David Jordan
Peter Kofler
Keigo Komuro
Lou McFadin
Ken Nichols
Gordon Scannell
Mark Steiner
Satoshi Yasuda

Meeting Agenda
 
Roll Call—Martha Muir, W4MSA

Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO

Frank opened the meeting by congratulating all the folks who were involved in the success of the ARISS contact at the Linley School in the Blue Mountains of Australia. He also congratulated Sergey Samburov and the Russian Space community on the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight on April 12, 1961. This flight paved the way for the ISS today. April 12 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Space Shuttle program. All regions of the world have contributed to human spaceflight.
Frank then pointed out that one year ago the ARISS program changed in response to the Covid pandemic. On April 30 of last year, the first Multipoint Telebridge Contact was conducted which allowed us to continue to have ARISS contacts despite the pandemic. Frank thanked John Kludt for putting together the whole Multipoint Telebridge program without which “we would have had to shut down the whole ARISS program.” He also thanked the ground stations and whole ground operations team for their support of this huge pivot for our program.
 
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO & Martha Muir, W4MSA
[Decisional]

 The Minutes for the February ARISS International monthly meeting had been distributed to the delegates earlier. Gaston Bertels made a motion to accept the Minutes and Rosalie White seconded that motion. The motion was approved and the Minutes accepted without dissention.
 
2.SSTV Awards
[Informational]
 
Sergey Samurov reported that with a new crew going up to the ISS and some other crew members coming down our second round of SSTV images is postponed until at least until late May. Meanwhile, images to use for this next round are being gathered. These images should feature ham radio being used on MIR, the Space Shuttle, the ISS or other vehicles and/or astronauts/cosmonauts involved in the program. Frank Bauer requested that these images be sent to him and John Kludt.
 
3.ARISS-I Listserv
[Informational]
 
Dave Taylor reported that the ARISS-I and ARISS-Ops listservs on AMSAT.org have been shut down two weeks ago. Both of those listservs were migrated over to ARISS.org. So far, there have been no bounce backs. Other ARISS listservs will be transitioned to ARISS.org soon.
 
Frank Bauer thanked Dave for his taking on this task. He further said that we need to keep these listservs restricted to those actively working with the ARISS program. Regions need to let others know if they have approved someone to be added to the listserv. The ARISS-I meeting is open and transparent but work in operations are not to be as open. They are private and not to be shared externally as they contain sensitive data. Oliver Amend added that the European areas have some concerns about their private information being shared due to European directive on GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Oliver continued by saying that we should keep ARISS operations and engineering data private on our listeservs .

Ad Hoc
 
Glen McDonell asked if there is any word about our Artemis proposal to NASA. Frank Bauer said no, there’s no word yet but NASA has changed their monthly meetings on Lunar initiatives. NASA has combined the monthly meetings for Gateway and Artemis.  NASA, ESA, JAXA and other agencies will be involved in these meetings.
 
Oliver Amend reminded attendees of the Ear to Ear Meeting coming up in June (last week in June). Regions should get reports and agenda items to the ARISS-I officers.
 
The next ARISS-I meeting will be on May 18 at 1100 UTC, one month before the Ear to Ear meeting. So the main focus of that meeting will be getting ready for the Ear to Ear meeting.
 
Frank Bauer concluded the meeting by thanking everyone for attending this meeting and for dealing with this Covid situation while still providing outstanding ARISS opportunities for students.
 
Respectfully Submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary-Treasurer

Minutes of ARISS-I meeting
ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
March 16, 2021 – 1100 UTC

Participants: 
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer                                                                                            
Gaston Bertels 
Armand Budzianowski 
Emanuele D’Andria 
Stefan Dombrowski   
Shizuo Endo 
Gianpietro Ferrario 
Bruce Hunter 
John Kludt 
Glenn MacDonell 
Keigo Komuro 
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir 
Ken Nichols 
Eric Oosterbaan   
Jan Poppeliers 
Sergey Samburov 
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
Interpreter:  Ksenia Shelkova
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke  
Jean-Pierre Courjaud 
Darin Cowan 
Francesco De Paolis   
Martin Diggins 
Bertus Husken 
Tony Hutchison 
David Jordan 
Peter Kofler 
Keigo Komuro 
Lou McFadin
Kenneth Ransom   
Graham Shirville 
Mark Steiner 
 
Meeting Agenda 
  
Roll Call—Martha Muir, W4MSA 
     
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
 
 Frank opened the meeting by congratulating all the folks who were involved in the success of getting the Columbus radio system back in operation.  It involved a lot of work by a lot of people.
  . 
  
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO & Martha Muir, W4MSA 
            [Decisional]  

   The Minutes for the February ARISS International monthly meeting had been distributed to the delegates earlier.  Stefan Dombrowski made a motion to accept the Minutes and Gaston Bertels seconded that motion.  The motion to accept the Minutes was approved without dissention.

2.   Columbus Module Radio System
            [Informational]

Summary:  Frank said that thanks to the work done during an EVA on March 13, 2021 the “ARISS IORS is back in operation!” Folks around the world are using the APRS on it.  Frank and Oliver had held a press conference on March 10 to explain the situation with the radio.  Oliver added that folks on the European side are glad to have the radio back in operation.  Frank concurred, saying that NASA is happy that the crew was able to fix several other cables with Bartolemeo, allowing Bartolomeo to become fully operational.  The cause of the cable anomaly is still not known. 
  Frank thanked everyone who helped get the radio system back in operation.  This was a big, coordinated activity involving ESA, Airbus, NASA, and more.  What was accomplished was not easy to do. The ARISS team was grateful for the support and teamwork by the space agencies to resolve this issue quickly.  Frank said he would also like to thank Sergey for allowing us to use the radio in the Russian module for ARISS contacts in the meantime.  The cosmonauts also did familiarization training with Victor Glover to get him up to speed on that radio.  “Thank you, Sergey”.   
.
3.       April SSTV Activities
             [Informational]
  
Summary:  Sergey began his remarks by congratulating everyone involved in solving the radio problems.  He said that he was surprised by the number of Russian hams who followed the progress of the repairs and reached out to him afterward with their thanks.
  Coming up in April will be the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight.  There will be great celebrations in Russia to mark this.  On April 9 there will be a launch of a new vehicle to the ISS.  On April 17, there will be a crew from the ISS returning to earth. 
  The next SSTV transmission will occur after April 20 and will be the result of “International Teamwork.”  Part of these images will be about the 60th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight.  For the rest of the 12 images in this program, it is recommended that each region select ham radio astronauts to include.  Sergey would like to recognize the first crew of radio amateurs who called from space. 
  .
4.       Status of Waiver Requests
            [Informational]

Summary:  The extension of the Waiver Request policy was discussed by the ARISS-I officers (Frank, Oliver, and Martha).  Currently scheduled to end on June 30, the policy was extended to September 30.  The Waiver Policy was put in place for two key reasons:  (1) to protect the safety of the students, faculty, and hams during this pandemic and (2) to minimize the last minute cancellation of ARISS contacts.  Both of these figured into the decision to extend the Waiver Policy.
  The release of the vaccine and other factors may allow this extension to be shortened if things get better with the pandemic.
  John Kludt said that only 3 schools will be affected by the extension of this policy.  Frank thanked John for handling these waiver requests and reminded delegates that waivers are only required if a contact will not accept a Multipoint Telebridge.  Oliver added his thanks to those operating the telebridge stations that support these contacts.
  Frank also thanked John for the video productions that are available on YouTube.  He said that schools are watching the videos of other ARISS contacts and are trying to make theirs better.  Sponsors are watching the videos, too.  This is ‘one of the positives coming out of this Covid situation.’
 
Ad Hoc        
  
     When are we going to turn on the voice repeater on the new radio system?  John said he will work with the Ops committee to develop an overall schedule for APRS and voice repeater operations.
 
  Eric Oosterbaan asked if a ham could send a image to the ISS and then get it back down?  Frank said yes, this is possible using the voice repeater.  But we would want to have special SSTV event times so that there are no collisions from those wanting to talk on voice and those sending SSTV images.  Eric then asked if a string of commands could be sent to and from the ISS to control robots in schools?  Frank answered ‘yes, via APRS.’ 
 
  The ARISS-I meeting will be Ear to Ear again this year due to the continuation of the pandemic.  Oliver is in charge of this meeting and said it will occur from June 21 to June 25.  These dates do not conflict with the Friedrichshaven hamfest.  If delegates have a topic to add to the agenda, please send them to the ARISS-I officers. 
 
  Frank reminded delegates that the Artemis II proposal was submitted on time.  He has since heard this proposal was still under consideration and should know more in April if it is still in the running to fly.  Frank also said that the recent problems with the IORS seemed to indicate the need for test equipment on the ISS.  It would need to be small and lightweight and requests suggestions by delegates.
 
  Dave Taylor said that he is still working with the ARISS-I listserv to get that various lists completely switched over from its current amsat.org domain. 
 
Next Meeting 
 
 The next meeting is April 20, 2021 at 1100 UTC. 
 

Minutes of ARISS-I meeting
ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
February 16, 2021 – 1200 UTC
 
Participants: 
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer                                                                                            
Gaston Bertels 
Armand Budzianowski 
Emanuele D’Andria 
Francesco De Paolis   
Stefan Dombrowski   
Shizuo Endo 
Gianpietro Ferrario 
Bruce Hunter 
Bertus Husken 
Tony Hutchison 
John Kludt 
Keigo Komuro 
Glenn MacDonell 
Lou McFadin 
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir 
Ken Nichols 
Eric Oosterbaan   
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom  
Sergey Samburov 
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
Interpreter:  Ksenia Shelkova
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke  
Jean-Pierre Courjaud 
Darin Cowan 
Martin Diggins 
David Jordan 
Peter Kofler 
Chet Latawiec 
Gordon Scannell 
Graham Shirville 
Mark Steiner 
 
Meeting Agenda 
  
Roll Call—Martha Muir, W4MSA 
     
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 

  Frank opened the meeting by thanking Sergey Samburov for allowing the use of the radio in the Service Module and recognizing the international cooperation shown in trying to solve the problem with the newly installed radio in the Columbus Module. 
  
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO & Martha Muir, W4MSA 
            [Decisional]  
   For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on February 16, 2021, Martha Muir took the Summary:    Stefan Dombrowski made a motion to accept the January 2021 Minutes.  Glenn MacDonell seconded that motion.  The Minutes were approved without objection and will be sent to Carol Jackson for posting.
 
2.       Columbus Module Radio System
[Informational]


  Oliver summarized the situation by saying that the EVA (spacewalk) to install the Bartolomeo platform RF cabling in series with the ARISS antenna cable was completed on January 27.  When the Columbus radio was attempted to be used for an ARISS contact with a school in Wyoming, that school could not pick up the astronaut on the ISS and the astronaut let the flight controllers know that he could not hear the school.   Subsequent ARISS contacts are being made using the radio in the Russian Zvezda Service Module.  ISS astronauts need to have Russian familiarization training to  use that system.
 
 It is presently suspected that there is a problem with cable HMU 601.  Several cables located inside Columbus, next to the radio, will be tested one by one to determine if any will provide a clear RF path from the radio to the antenna.  Oliver ended his summary by saying that so far, there is “no good news” here.
 
  Frank added that, thanks to Sergey’s help, a scheduled contact in Canada happened within a week of that failure.  Sergey replied “I did all I could for the betterment of ARISS”
 
.                  
3.       Training of Russian Cosmonauts
[Informational]
 
  Sergey Samburov reported that training and certification of all ISS cosmonauts and astronauts on the radio system in the Russian module have been completed except for the paperwork.  It is expected that the paperwork will be completed within a week.  He expects to have ARISS exchanges with school children to continue as scheduled.  The attending conference delegates gave Sergey a big round of thanks.
 
4.       Status of Waiver Requests
[Informational]


  Summary:  Frank Bauer spoke on behalf of the ARISS-I officers by expressing thanks to the ARISS mentors for their work with schools on the Multipoint Telebridge policy that was put into place as a result of the global pandemic and working with those schools on requesting a waiver from that policy.  We all want the ARISS contacts to continue without interruption in a safe manner. 
 
  Frank continued by saying that some parts of the world have a better handle on this pandemic than other areas.  As a result, some waiver requests have been granted and some have had their procedure plans adjusted to keep everyone safe.  Australia is a ‘stellar’ place in keeping the pandemic in check and has had 3 of 3 waiver requests granted.  Japan has had 2 of 2 such requests granted, too. 
 
 
5.       2021 Ear to Ear Meeting
[Informational]


  Summary:  Oliver Amend summarized the current status and plans for this year’s ‘ear to ear’ meeting.  Looking at a calendar, he pointed out that the week of June 21 to 26 is his recommendation for this year’s meeting as it didn’t conflict with other known big ham or NASA events going on. 
 
  Since this is the 20th anniversary of the ARISS program, Oliver recommended that Monday of that week be used for special commemorative events.  A program about the Lunar Gateway needs to be added to the proposed agenda.
 
  Once again, like last year, this will be a virtual meeting.  Though there is desire to see and meet with others in person, there is still too much uncertainty about when it will be safe to travel again this year. 
 
 
6.       Status of ARISS-I and ARISS Ops Migration
[Informational]
 
  Summary:  Dave Taylor talked about the switch from ariss-i@amsat.org and ariss-ops@amsat.org to ariss-i@ariss-i.org and ops@ariss-i.org.  The former of each of those is being phased out.  Delegates to this conference should make sure they have upgraded to the new addresses.
 
  Dave can do this manually for folks if they let him know.  Bertus Hunter said he would work with Dave on this.  Dave will send another email to folks about this.  Next month’s meeting announcements should be sent using only the new ‘ariss-i.org’ list.
 
  John Kludt said that he updated the ARISS Ops list by deleting folks who no longer want to be involved with it.
 
 
Ad Hoc      
 
   Frank let folks know that he did submit an Artemis-II proposal.  It is too soon to have heard anything back about it.
 
 Frank concluded today’s conference by saying that ‘today’s meeting and our positive outcomes, when issues arise, shows the impact of our international team working closely together.’
 
Next Meeting        
 
    The next meeting is March 16, 2021 at 1100 UTC. 

ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
January 19, 2021 – 1200 UTC 
 
Participants:
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer          
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Stefan Dombrowski 
Shizuo Endo
Gianpietro Ferrario
Bruce Hunter
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison
David Jordan
John Kludt
Keigo Komuro
Chet Latawiec
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Martha Muir
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Interpreter: Irina Yashkova 
 
Unable to attend:
Fabio Azzarello
Kerry Banke
Gaston Bertes
Jean-Pierre Courjaud
Darin Cowan
Emanuele D’Andria
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Peter Kofler
Ken Nichols
Eric Oosterbaan 
Gordon Scannell
Mark Steiner
 
 
Meeting Agenda
 
Roll Call—Martha Muir, W4MSA
   
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
 
Frank Bauer welcomed meeting attendees. He asked attendees to continue to be safe and agile with the stresses we are exposed to these days.  Our goals are to safely maintain school contacts for kids.
 
 
1.   Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO & Martha Muir, W4MSA
         [Decisional]
 
Summary:  For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on December 15, 2020, Rosalie White took the minutes and forwarded the document on December 20 to the other ARISS-International Officers, Frank Bauer and Oliver Amend for review. Martha Muir distributed the file to ARISS Delegates on January 13.
 
Discussion:  Frank Bauer asked for a motion to approve the document. Stefan Dombrowski moved to accept, and Rosalie White seconded the motion. There were no objections; the minutes were accepted and Carol Jackson will post them. 
 
    
2.      SSTV Operational Report
        [Informational]
 
Summary:   Frank thanked Sergey Samburov for the “extremely outstanding SSTV transmissions” sent in late December.  Sergey Samburov said that thanks go to the whole team involved in this project including the cosmonauts, Armand Budzianowski, Kevin Zari, John Kludt, and Kenneth Ransom. 
  Armand expressed his thanks for the excellent cooperation of everyone involved in this project.  There were 4674 awards given out.  That number included a number of non-hams who got involved.  Emails received included thanks to the ARISS team and congratulations on the 20 years of the ARISS program.  Respondents said that they couldn’t wait for the next time images are released.
  Armand said that the use of the USB SDR dongles were very popular - according to the reports received during the SSTV ARISS activity from the ISS.
 
 
3.  COVID-19 Status Report
               [Informational]
 
Summary:    Frank reported that the ARISS community is doing a great job keeping the contacts going despite the COVID-19 pandemic.  The ARISS leadership added a new policy in December 2020 with the goals of (1) keeping everyone involved - ham radio operators, students, faculty, and others - safe from the virus and (2) maximize the number of contacts and minimize the number of cancellations of contacts due to changes in policy of local communities.  Schools not wanting to do a Multiport Telebridge Contact must submit a waiver request that addresses those concerns.  Frank thanked John Kludt for being the point of contact for these waivers.  The waivers are reviewed and discussed by Frank, Oliver, and Martha.  This team decides to accept or deny these waivers.  Frank also thanked the Technical Mentors who work with their schools to get the information requested on the waiver accurately. 
  The ARISS-I officers decided to extend the waiver policy until the end of June of this year.  The impact of the rollout of the COVID vaccine will be monitored and if the data justifies it, the program will be ended, ended early, kept in place, or extended.  Oliver directed delegates to think ‘safety first’ and reminded everyone that these requests for waivers are being considered very carefully.
  Shizou Endo thanked the Operations team for coming up with this waiver policy.  This policy was used with two schools in Japan recently that were able to adjust their plans to continue with their plans to have direct contacts. 
 
4.  Artemis 2.0 Proposal Progress Report 
               [Informational]
 
Summary:    Frank reported that the Artemis II proposal is due by the end of this week.  The goals of this proposal are (1) provide a hands-on immersive experience of lunar exploration as an educational and outreach tool via ham radio station on Artemis and (2) extend our lunar radio system design for Artemis, Gateway and any similar opportunities that come up.  Frank asked anyone who wants to review the proposal to email him. 
 
5.  ARISS Operations 2.0
               [Informational]
 
Summary:   John Kludt reported that two Ops 2.0 foundational projects have been completed:   providing a web server foundation for Ops 2.0 and ARISS through the acquisition of the ariss-i.org and ariss-usa.org domain names and selection of the Hostgator as our web host and WordPress as our hosting tool set.  Also, through the help of Dave Taylor, ARISS will soon be moving the ARISS-I and ARISS-Ops listserv and several others from AMSAT.org to ARISS-I.org and ARISS-USA.org as appropriate.  The update of these listservs will be done via invitations on January 29.  John also thanks the international team on their help in an extensive Ops 2.0 interview session that has been conducted over the past several months to understand how ARISS should develop the new Ops 2.0 interface.  Currently, the plan is to replace the current ARISS Ops website with subprojects including (1) Proposals and Selection, (2) Scheduling, (3) Contact Execution, and (4) Post-Event Reporting. 
 
 
Ad Hoc
  Nothing major reported.
 
Next Meeting   
The next meeting will be February 16, 2021 at 1200 UTC.
 
Respectfully submitted,
Martha Muir, W4MSA
ARISS-International Secretary-Treasurer

For earlier meetings, see Archives.