ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
March 19, 2019, 1100 UTC

Participants:
Oliver Amend  
Kerry Banke   
Frank Bauer  
Gaston Bertels
Jean-Pierre Courjaud
Emanuele D’Andria
Francesco De Paolis  
Shizuo Endo 
Gianpietro Ferrario
Bruce Hunter
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison
David Jordan
John Kludt
Keigo Komuro
Chet Latawiec
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Ron Parker
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Dave Taylor
Eskil Van Loosdrecht
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Interpreter: Alexandra Tussing
 
Unable to attend:
Fabio Azzarello
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan
Stefan Dombrowski
Ken Nichols
Keith Pugh
Graham Shirville
Joe Spier
Mark Steiner
 
Meeting Agenda
 
Roll Call—Rosalie White, K1STO     
  
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
 
Frank Bauer welcomed the team and stated that many interesting things are happening within ARISS. An example is last week’s exciting meeting held on the Exploration initiative. Space agencies are working together on Gateway systems and the ARISS team is engaged in the discussions. As with the planning of the International Space Station, the various space agencies are developing differing systems and considering varying concepts for Gateway. For instance, ARISS-Japan Delegate Masanobu Tsuji provided a beautiful video of a lander and rover that JAXA is collaborating on with Toyota; the presentation will be shared with the full ARISS team. Frank Bauer thanked all of the ARISS Delegates and team members who have been engaging in the ARISS Exploration initiative. Those who want to tie in to future meetings should email him.
 
1.     Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Rosalie White, K1STO
 [Decisional] 
 
Summary: The minutes from the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on February 19, 2019 were completed by Rosalie White on February 24, 2019. After a review was completed on March 11, 2019, the minutes were distributed on March 13, 2019 to ARISS Delegates. 
 
Discussion: Glenn MacDonell made a motion to accept the minutes as written. Chet Latawiec seconded the motion. There were no objections from delegates, so the minutes were approved as written.
 
2.      2019 Face-to-face Meeting Plans, Canada—Glenn MacDonell, VE3XRA and Chet Latawiec, VE3CFK     
[Informational] 
 
Summary: The ARISS-Canada Delegates will offer more information to ARISS team members regarding the 2019 face-to-face meeting at the Canadian Space Agency.
 
Discussion:  Glenn MacDonell said a contract was signed with the hotel, and details such as telephone number will be distributed soon to Delegates. The chart pack recently emailed to the team was generic, and contained incorrect hotel information. The hotel will be one of several owned by the Alt hotel group and the URL will be shared soon.  Then team members can book rooms by going online (using the ARISS booking code 1906ARISS). Once the team receives all hotel details, reservations can be made by telephone, also.  After team members have booked hotel rooms, they should also email both Glenn MacDonell and Chet Latawiec so the two can track the list with the hotel.  The cost for single-bed rooms is $174.00 Canadian dollars.  With the current exchange rate, that is about $130.00 US dollars and 115 Euros.  Rooms can be booked at any time but must be done before the 24th of May to get this special rate.
 
The hardware meeting will begin Tuesday morning, June 25; the ARISS delegates meeting will be Wednesday through Friday, June 26-28. The ARISS-Canada team arranged for all meetings to be held at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Conference Center.
 
Chet Latawiec had already sent Delegates the information on passport and visa requirements for traveling to Canada.  The Canadians will send options for travelling from the Montreal Airport to the hotel. Also to be sent will be the name of the person at CSA the team must contact with certain details from passports in order to be admitted to CSA property, whether team members or the team’s family members, and this information should be sent to CSA prior to the meeting.   
 
Frank Bauer thanked Glenn MacDonell and Chet Latawiec for their leadership in regard to handling all of the details for hosting the meeting. Carol Jackson will email a survey to ARISS team members to ask who is coming and to get airline information.
 
It was suggested that the Canadian team update the earlier chart pack and send it to Frank Bauer, who will send an email to the entire team that lists the URL to access the chart pack    
 
Team members should email any further suggestions for meeting agenda items to Frank Bauer, Oliver Amend, and Rosalie White.
 
3.      SSTV Transmissions—Sergey Samburov, RV3DR
      [Informational] 
 
Summary:  An update will be given on SSTV with a discussion to be held on the need for volunteers to assist with handling submitted images. Far more images are being downloaded; people are very interested in these than in previous years.
 
Discussion: Sergey Samburov told the team he is planning to have SSTV images transmitted from the ISS on April 12 for Cosmonautics Day. First, however, a school contact will be on April 11.  Following that, SSTV images will be transmitted April 12 through April 14.  At this time, his team is collecting images.  Six of the transmitted images will be from Russia and six will be from the US and Europe.
 
Frank Bauer said the ARISS team and many fans are looking forward to another SSTV event, and that Gaston Bertels is coordinating the collection of European images to be considered. Sergey Samburov was thanked for his leadership in planning this event.
 
4.      Update, InterOperable Radio System--Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
      [Informational] 
 
Summary:  Frank Bauer will present details on the great progress being made by the team on the new InterOperable Radio System and on preparations for upcoming tests.
Discussion:  Frank Bauer reminded the team that many of them had seen the flight-identical unit last October at the College Park ARISS meetings. He said progress is going well in the development and manufacture of actual flight units.  All circuit boards are being populated with components for all 10 units of the MultiVoltage Power Supply.
 
The hardware team is getting closer to having things ready for upcoming tests--EMI, power, acoustics, and magnetics.  Kerry Banke and Lou McFadin would travel to Johnson Space Center (JSC) for the tests. Once those tests have successful outcomes, one more set of less intensive tests would be required at JSC for flight units prior to launch.  Those tests will support verification for using the radio systems in the Columbus Module and the Russian Service Module.
 
Lou McFadin said this is a very intense time for the team because of all of the steps necessary for assembly and for preparing the test procedures.
 
Replacement Antenna
Lou McFadin gave an update on the antenna the team has to build to replace the ARISS antenna that will be uninstalled when the Bartolomeo platform is attached to the Columbus Module.  The new antenna elements are manufactured and coated and should be shipped back to Lou McFadin soon.  He is waiting to receive the cable.
 
Frank Bauer reminded the team that ARISS is dealing with expensive hardware endeavors and fund-raising projects are on-going.  It was suggested that team members ask friends and family to support the costs and contribute to ARISS by going online to click the Donate button. He also said that families of students at school contacts may make for a great opportunity for finding donors, for instance, a parent may know a person with a philanthropic foundation. Mentors can be aware that people at schools could be a funding source.
 
Ad hoc
 
Emanuele asked for an update on the HamTV unit. Frank Bauer is working with the shipping team on the steps required to get the unit to Europe, and an email will be sent when more information is known.
 
Frank Bauer thanked Alexandra Tussing for being the interpreter for today’s telecon meeting.
 
Next Meeting
The next meeting will be April 16, 2019 at 1100 UTC.
 
Respectfully submitted, 
 
Rosalie White, K1STO
ARISS-International Secretary-Treasurer
March 20, 2019

ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
February 19, 2019, 1200 UTC
 
Participants:
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer  
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Jean-Pierre Courjaud
Darin Cowan
Francesco De Paolis  
Shizuo Endo 
Gianpietro Ferrario
Bruce Hunter
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison
John Kludt
Keigo Komuro
Chet Latawiec
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Ron Parker
Jan Poppeliers
Keith Pugh
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Interpreter:  Olga Moncuquet
 
Unable to attend:
Fabio Azzarello
Kerry Banke
Emanuele D’Andria
Stefan Dombrowski
David Jordan
Ken Nichols
Joe Spier
Mark Steiner
Eskil Van Loosdrecht
 
 
 
Meeting Agenda
 
Roll Call—Rosalie White, K1STO     
   
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
 
Frank Bauer welcomed the team and thanked them for their outstanding support to ARISS.
 
 
 
1.     Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Rosalie White, K1STO
 [Decisional] 
 
Summary: The minutes from the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on January 15, 2019 were completed by Rosalie White on January 19, 2019. After a review was completed on January 23, 2019, the minutes were distributed that day to ARISS Delegates. 
 
Discussion: Darin Cowan made a motion to accept the minutes as is.  Gaston Bertels seconded the motion. There were no objections, so the minutes were approved as written. 
 
 
2.      Summary, Series of SSTV Transmissions—Sergey Samburov, RV3DR & Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
      [Informational] 
 
Summary: A follow-up report about the February SSTV transmissions will be presented by Sergey Samburov, and a few comments will be given by Frank Bauer.
 
Discussion: Sergey Samburov heard many good comments about this latest series of images. Frank Bauer reported that the series was run two weekends due to slightly low signal output the first weekend.  Over 5,000 received images were submitted each weekend -- over 10,000 total submitted to the web site. This is a new record.  A number of emails were received from people who enjoyed downloading the series.
 
Armand Budzianowski reported that after the first weekend, 1,713 award applications were submitted, and the Polish team issued and sent 1,670 awards. The second weekend, an additional 1,136 award applications were submitted, making the total 2,849.  He thanked everyone involved for their cooperation on working with the awards team.  The Polish team was thanked for handling the awards and also for creating this particular diploma. Sergey Samburov and Frank Bauer thanked Armand Budzianowski and his team for their great work. 
 
Armand Budzianowski also offers the possibility of offering a special SSTV award sometime in the future, if needed.  If team members have ideas for these, please email them to Oliver Amend for consideration and coordination with the ARISS-International Awards Committee.
 
Rosalie White commented that the SSTV transmissions are good publicity about ARISS to ham radio operators who have not expressed interest in ARISS previously. She cited receiving two emails from US hams who really enjoyed downloading images. Glenn MacDonell expressed his surprised at how much interest there has been and said hams have downloaded their images to their local nets, and some have recorded the audio in order to give demonstrations at their local club meetings.
 
Sergey Samburov said it is great for schools and for non-hams.  He said the next series will probably be around April 12 and will feature images of Yuri Gagarin and also the space shuttle. Frank Bauer asked team members to look for images that have not yet been transmitted, and email them to him and Sergey Samburov.
 
David Honess (part of ESA Education and a non-radio-amateur) experimented by himself with receiving images using a Raspberry Pi unit and an SDR dongle and was supported by Ciaran Morgan, and they were quite successful.  They will share more information on that with the team.  Gaston Bertels reported that the signal was really strong this time, and he was using only a low-power hand-held radio.
 
 
3.      ARISS-Russia, Changes in Delegates -- Sergey Samburov, RV3DR
      [Informational] 
 
Summary:  Sergey Samburov will announce changes in regard to ARISS-Russia delegates.
 
Discussion:  Sergey Samburov informed everyone that he is looking for a second delegate to represent ARSS-Russia since Tatiana Kolmykova will no longer be able to support ARISS.  As he makes progress on finding a new delegate, he will share more details.  
 
 
4.      2019 Face-to-face Meeting Plans, Canada—Glenn MacDonell, VE3XRA and Chet Latawiec, VE3CFK, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, Oliver Amend, DG6BCE, and Rosalie White, K1STO
      [Informational] 
 
Summary:  An update will be provided by ARISS-Canada regarding the 2019 face-to-face meeting at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Part of the update will be that the hardware meeting on June 25 is to be at a location near CSA (not at CSA) because its conference center was unavailable on the 25th. 
 
An initial meeting agenda will be distributed. Here is a short list of deadlines, with more details to be shared at the February monthly telecon meeting
 
* The team should submit requests for specific agenda items to all three ARISS Officers, Frank Bauer, Oliver Amend, and Rosalie White no later than February 22. They will develop a detailed meeting agenda. Some agenda items will be defined by ARISS-Canada and CSA. ARISS officers will have final say on the meeting agenda including needed changes.
* Delegates and committee chairs will submit their reports to Carol Jackson by May 25.
* ARISS delegates, committee chairs, and team members will submit their presentations to Carol Jackson by May 31.
*** If a report or presentation is not submitted to Carol Jackson by the deadline, the particular report or presentation will be removed from the meeting agenda and will not be presented. 
 
Discussion:  Glenn MacDonell gave a summary of information that was shared previously. The ARISS-International meeting will be June 26, 27, and 28 at the Canadian Space Agency Conference Center, and the hardware meeting will be June 25. 
 
CSA is enthusiastic about hosting the ARISS meeting and two or three CSA representatives will participate. CSA astronaut David St-Jacques is planned to return to Earth within these days, requiring a shift in location within the CSA conference center.  Note that the St-Jacques return date may shift among some days.     
 
A hotel is nearby and is close to restaurants, shops and transportation to CSA. ARISS-Canada will share more information as it is finalized.
 
Sergey Samburov asked about the July 1 national holiday, Canada Day; he suggested some of the team may wish to stay through the holiday.  Chet Latawiec will share details on entertainment and tourist information including Canada Day.  He has compiled data on what travelers need in the way of passports and visa.
 
Ad hoc
 
Tony Hutchison asked for an update on the HamTV transmitter. Frank Bauer reported that he is working with NASA on the final paperwork so that ARISS-US can get it transported to Europe.
 
 
Next Meeting
The next meeting will be March 19, 2019 at 1200 UTC.
 
 
Respectfully submitted, 
 
Rosalie White, K1STO
ARISS-International Secretary-Treasurer
February 24, 2019

ARISS International Monthly Meeting Teleconference
January 15, 2019, 1200 UTC
 
Participants:
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer  
Gaston Bertels
Emanuele D’Andria
Shizuo Endo 
Gianpietro Ferrario
Bruce Hunter
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison
David Jordan
Keigo Komuro
Chet Latawiec
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Jan Poppeliers
Keith Pugh
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Dave Taylor
Eskil Van Loosdrecht
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Interpreter:  Olga Moncuquet
 
Unable to attend:
Fabio Azzarello
Kerry Banke
Armand Budzianowski
Jean-Pierre Courjaud
Darin Cowan
Francesco De Paolis  
Stefan Dombrowski
John Kludt
Ken Nichols
Graham Shirville
Joe Spier
Mark Steiner
 
 
 
Meeting Agenda
 
Roll Call—Rosalie White, K1STO     
   
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
 
Frank Bauer welcomed the team to the first meeting of 2019 and commented on how much had been accomplished in 2018, saying this was due to a large team enthusiastic and passionate about youth and education. He said 2019 will see an equal amount of projects to handle. He reported that the recent SpaceX mission splashed down as planned, in the Pacific Ocean with the HamTV package onboard.
 
 
1.     Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Rosalie White, K1STO
 [Decisional] 
 
Summary:  The minutes from the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on December 18, 2018 were completed by Rosalie White on December 26, 2018. After a review on January 7, 2019, the minutes were distributed to ARISS Delegates.
 
Discussion:  Rosalie White received no emails regarding the minutes that she distributed and moved that they be accepted. Gaston Bertels seconded the motion.  No one had further comments, so Frank Bauer stated that the minutes were accepted.
 
 
2.     2019 ARISS Face-to-face Meeting Plans, Canada—Glenn MacDonell, VE3XRA
[Informational]
 
Summary: The ARISS-Canada Delegates and team, led by Glenn MacDonell, have made great strides in determining if they can host the 2019 ARISS Face-to-face Meeting.  They will share details on the team's progress.  ARISS Delegates and the international team should be prepared to quickly study what dates from early summer to late fall are not good ones for the meeting.
Discussion: Glenn MacDonell reported that the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is interested in hosting the 2019 face-to-face meeting if ARISS Delegates decide that is what they want. The CSA main conference center has all needed communications capabilities and a cafeteria. The Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, hotels and restaurants are relatively nearby.  Many people in the area speak English and French, and other languages. 
The conference center is in high demand; CSA suggested some preferable months for the meeting. Because the ARISS team needed to decide quickly, a discussion continued about dates, what would not work with other events scheduled such as Hamvention, Ham Radio Friedrichshafen, and Sergey Samburov having many September meetings scheduled. It was determined by Delegates that June 26-28 was a good time for the ARISS-International Meeting, with the 29th for the ARISS Hardware Meeting. No one had objections. Glenn MacDonell will work with the CSA staff to solidify the dates.
Tony Pellerin, a CSA staff person, and some of the other CA staff would be able to interact with us. He was part of CSA when ARISS met there 17 years ago and he remembers those meetings. Glenn MacDonell and the Canadian team was thanked for the work of pulling together all of the initial information. 
 
 
3.     Update, New Series of SSTV Transmissions—Sergey Samburov, RV3DR and Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
[Informational]
 
Summary:  Progress has been made on choosing options for images to be downlinked for the next series of SSTV transmissions.  
Discussion:  Sergey Samburov had only recently returned from holidays and has been very busy with crew debriefs. He will make time soon to work with the team about details for the next series of SSTV transmissions.  The series will commemorate the first years of human spaceflight and ham radio.
 
4.       Final Voting Results, ARISS-International Board—Rosalie White, K1STO 
[Informational]
 
Summary: Bertus Husken took responsibility for the ARISS nomination processes related to the election of the three ARISS-International officers for the 2019-2020 term. The result of his call to Delegates for nominees was: Frank Bauer for chair, Oliver Amend for vice chair, and Rosalie White for secretary-treasurer.  Delegates were asked to vote via email for this slate of officers.
Discussion: Bertus Husken received multiple emails nominating Frank Bauer as chair, Oliver Amend as vice chair, and Rosalie White as secretary-treasurer. As current secretary-treasurer, Rosalie White was asked to email all ARISS Delegates to request that they vote for or against this slate of officers.  Over 83% of the Delegates responded.  All votes were in favor of electing these nominees; because this was a unanimous response and a quorum, the nominees would be declared elected. 
 
Frank Bauer stated that the officers will begin the new term and thanked Delegates for voting.
 
Rosalie White said for the next election cycle, in two years, the responsibility of the election nomination processes will probably return to the ARISS-Canada, the tradition from earlier years. ARISS-Canada having its full complement of delegates now, is able to actively participate in ARISS events. 
 
Bertus Husken was thanked for stepping in for the last two cycles.
 
 
5.   Update, MarconISSta—Oliver Amend. DG6BCE
[Informational]
 
Summary:  In late December, Martin Buscher informed Oliver Amend that the MarconISSta project had been approved for extended operation on the ISS due to the success of the data the equipment collected last fall. A meeting was to be held shortly before the ARISS-International monthly meeting.
Discussion:  Oliver Amend affirmed that the MarconISSta experiment continues operation and the initially-planned investigation was extended. Up to 10 gigabytes of data has been collected and it will be investigated by the experiment initiator, Martin Buscher, his students, and the team at the Technical University of Berlin in Germany. Latest news is at end of February, the equipment will be de-installed and stowed in Columbus. Negotiations between ARISS, ESA/DLR and NASA about equipment ownership have been re-started under the new aspects of its future use. The ESA Education Office is interested in the hardware’s future use for the "Fly your GNU Receiver" educational program as presented at the October 2018 ARISS Face-to-Face Meeting. ARISS is studying the integration of the Lime SDR into the new ARISS Interoperable Radio System that will be in Columbus.
 
Bertus Husken asked if the ham community can get data in case they have an opportunity to use it. Oliver Amend said the agreement is that ARISS will get access.  At this point in time, though, the information is raw data that is very difficult to follow, and also, the Principal Investigator must write and file a report before access is given to ARISS. Glenn MacDonell asked if some results would be available in a downloadable type of file because he has done some presentations and would like to have some examples to show.  Oliver Amend will talk to Martin Buscher about this request. 
 
Gaston Bertels said it would be interesting to know if the L- and S-band antennas were used, which could give the team an idea of how the antenna performed and to learn the aperture angle.  Oliver Amend reported that one of the L- and S-band antennas was used, the one that was not used for HamTV.  He said that although no measure of the aperture angle was done, the antenna used for MarconISSta was fully operational.
 
Frank Bauer asked if the other HamTV antenna could be used, though it would require crew time to switch, since there had been the issue with that system and switching antennas might tell us something.  Oliver Amend will talk to Martin Buscher.  Frank Bauer asked if a news release could be prepared by Martin Buscher so that ARISS sponsors could read about the continuation of the experiment.  Oliver Amend stated that a news release was being prepared.  He mentioned that Martin Buscher is expecting to hear results from his thesis on MarconISSta at the end of January.
 
Frank Bauer said a follow up should be done at the end of February. He said Astro Pi might be used in the future, also for recording latitude and longitude during the time the data is recorded to capture the Space Station orbits; that should help with interpreting the data.  Oliver Amend said current MarconISSta records were received once a week and Technical University Berlin staff added data on the ISS’s position and orientation. 
 
Frank Bauer asked Oliver Amend to thank Martin Buscher and said these experiments show that ARISS is a part of educational technical research.
 
 
6.  Update, HamTV--Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO
[Informational]
 
Summary:  The HamTV unit was to return to Earth on SpaceX 16, with an expected departure from the ISS to be January 10.
Discussion: Kenneth Ransom reported that the HamTV unit had been packed and put on the SpaceX vehicle. It landed in the Pacific Ocean on January 13; the capsule was retrieved safely.
 
Tony Hutchison asked what happens next. Kenneth Ransom said the HamTV unit will be processed and then sent to Houston where ARISS will coordinate the shipment to Kayser-Italia. Once it is in Italy, the unit will go through a full failure investigation by ARISS, AMSAT-Italia, and the Kayser-Italia team to determine possible causes of the failure. Then ARISS will decide the best way to move forward.

ARISS is grateful to NASA, CASIS, and the team working with Mitch Polt, NASA Ham Payload Integration Manager, for organizing steps for the return of the unit. 
 
 
Ad hoc 
 
No topics were brought forward.
 
Next Meeting
 
The next meeting will be February 19, 2019 at 1200 UTC.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
Rosalie White, K1STO
ARISS-International Secretary Treasurer
January 19, 2019
 

For earlier meetings, see Archives.