Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
August 16, 2022 – 1100 UTC
 
Participants:
Oliver Amend  
Frank Bauer 
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
David Jordan 
Keigo Komuro 
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan  
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White
 
Unable to attend: 
Oliver Amend 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Darin Cowan 
Rita DeHart
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Stefan Dombrowski                                                                                                                        
Gianpietro Ferrario
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter 
Tony Hutchison 
Peter Kofler 
Chet Latawiec 
Will Marchant 
Michel Nawrocki
Ken Nichols 
Jan Poppeliers 
Gordon Scannell 
Graham Shirville
Marty Schulman
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
 
Interpreter:  Margarita Dalinina-Baker  (Rita Baker)
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
            Frank welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.  He thanked everyone around the world for all they are doing for ARISS.  Kjell Lindgren continues to talk to hams around the world from the ISS.  ARISS is cited in “ISS Benefits for Humanity” booklet for our work with schools and children.  Frank said that he is looking forward to Sergey’s report later in this meeting about the release of the ten CubeSats from the ISS and for configuring the radios so that we can do voice and APRS at the same time.  There are lots of contacts going on in Russia concurrently.  On a sad note, ARISS-USA volunteer and mentor Larry Koziel died last week.  Frank said that Larry called him, Gordon Scannell and others from the hospital about ‘his’ schools.  He will be missed.
 
 
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir
 
            The June minutes were not available to send out prior to this meeting.  They will be sent out later for review and approval.
 
2. Wrap Up of Ear to Ear Meetings – Oliver Amend
        [Informational]
 
            Oliver thanked all the participants and presenters for the information, comments, ideas, and suggestions during the meetings.  There were 30 to 40 attendees daily.  The committee reports and region reports are available in the Drop Box.  The meetings ran from July 19 to July 22, with a topic for each day.  Tuesday:  Welcome.  Wednesday:  Education and Engineering Development.  Thursday:  Operations.  Friday:  Wrap Up day.
            Next year we hope to have a Face to Face meeting.  Oliver said he was thankful for the great discussions during this year’s Ear to Ear meetings.  Frank said that he concurs with Oliver’s comments and summary.                                                                   

3. Plans for 2023 Face to Face meeting in Europe – Oliver Amend
        [Informational]
                 
                  Oliver said that next year marks the 40th anniversary of Amateur Radio on human spaceflight vehicles.  Next year we plan to have the Face to Face meeting during the week of April 17 at ESA ESTEC in the Netherlands.  There is a separate meeting being planned for late November or early December to coincide with the 40th anniversary in Florida or Texas. 
                  The ESTEC daily schedule will follow this year’s pattern with Monday being a travel day.  There should also be time for folks to visit the blooming tulips in the Netherlands. 
                  Oliver said he will start reserving a room at ESTEC for our April meeting and Frank plans to work with a team in the US to begin preparations for the in-person celebration of the 40th anniversary of ham radio in space in November or December.
 
4. Debrief of Recent Deployment of CubeSats – Sergey Samburov
[Informational]
 
            “Greetings dear friends,” Sergey began.  He said that he regrets that he was not able to attend the Ear to Ear meetings.  He was tied up with the deployment of the CubeSats on July 21 by cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.  It was a great event and great experiment.  It was a difficult job for the crew members.  It was a big challenge to handle all ten CubeSats.  Sergey expressed his gratitude to Samantha for her care in working with the CubeSats.  The CubeSats have been operating autonomously since deployment.  Data from the CubeSats is being collected and distributed.  The satellites are deployed against the velocity vector of the ISS to prevent a collision.  They are currently moving 1000 km ahead and below the ISS.  Over 100,000 telemetry messages have been transmitted by these satellites.  Audio and video signals are available in Russian, English, and Spanish.  They are doing SSTV, too.  Southwest State University, in Kursk, Russia, is sending out diplomas and QSL cards to those involved in this program.  All info about this is available on the Southwest State University website. 
            Lou asked about the expected lifetime of the CubeSats.  About a year and a half, Sergey replied, depending on the sun’s activity. 
            Frank let everyone know that during the EVA,  Oleg referred to ISS as a cosmodrome.  Frank continued that it should be called the Tsiolkovsky-Samburov Cosmodrome, in honor of our ARISS-Russia’s leadership in developing and deploying these satellites and in honor of his great grandfather’s 165th birth anniversary.  “Thanks, Sergey,” Frank said.  Sergey expressed his thanks to “Frank and all my friends” for your support.  “We are acting like an Amateur Radio family.  Oleg is part of our Amateur Radio family.  He has been very active while he has been on the ISS.  He has completed five to six times as many ARISS contacts as are usually done during his time on the ISS.” 
            Frank said that the Amateur Radio community is excited about the fact that APRS is now available on the ISS.  Folks are using it!  He thanked Sergey for this capability.  Frank showed a list of hams from all over the world who have been communicating through APRS in the last 15 minutes.  Thanks, Sergey!
 
Any Other Business:  None
           
 
Next meeting:  September 20, 2022.
 

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
June 21, 2022
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
 
Participants:  
Frank Bauer 
Gaston Bertels
Darin Cowan 
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Micol Ivancic
Keigo Komuro 
Glenn MacDonell
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
 
Unable to attend: 
Oliver Amend 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Rita DeHart
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter 
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison 
David Jordan 
Peter Kofler
Chet Latawiec 
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Michel Nawrocki
Ken Nichols 
Eric Oosterbaan 
Gordon Scannell 
Marty Schulman
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
 
Interpreter:  Alexandre Khalinov
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
          Frank welcomed everyone to today’s meeting with news that astronaut Kjell Lindgren has been using the ham radio equipment on the ISS in his free time to make contacts with folks on the ground.  Among the folks he talked with are the new ARISS summer interns.  
 
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir
 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on May 17, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting.  Ciaran a motion to accept the minutes. Gaston seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
 
2. Updates on Russian CubeSat program-  Sergey Samburov
[Informational]
 
          Sergey needed to leave this meeting early so this section of the meeting’s Agenda was moved to this place in the meeting.
             Here is Rosalie’s summary of Sergey’s report:  Students at South West State University (SWSU) in Kursk, Russia in conjunction with ARISS-Russia, designed and built eight Tsiolkovsky SWSU satellites, with six launched to the ISS on February 17 and two more on June 3. Oleg Artemyev prepped the satellites, connecting them to the Service Module’s antenna feed device, and turned them on during orbits over Korolyov (Russian Mission Control Center) while controllers checked the performance. They received telemetry, confirming the satellites’ operability. SWSU will make circuit board diagrams available to other students to investigate. The mission of the SWSU satellites is to: create a peer-to-peer information network, study Earth's magnetic field, measure radio noise in outer space, and transmit photos and voice messages (each satellite’s phrase is different) in eight languages to radio amateurs everywhere.  Two other satellites were built by Ryazan State Radio Engineering University and were launched to the ISS. The Tsiolkovsky-Ryazan devices carry transmitters that will calibrate the sensitivity of radio telescopes at Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory at the Astro-Space Center of the Physical Institute. The two satellites can emit radio signals to help the study of radio wave propagation in the ionosphere.  All of the spacecraft are named Tsiolkovsky satellites to honor what would be Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s (Father of Russian Rocketry) 165th birthday. It is hoped that during a spacewalk in about a month, Oleg Artemyev, perhaps with the assistance of Samantha Cristoferetti, should be launching these satellites. The units will orbit for about 1.5 years.
   Frank thanked Sergey for his comprehensive report and asked him to let us know when the satellites are going to be deployed and we will get the word out.  Gaston and Graham thanked Sergey as well.
 
3. 2022 Ear to Ear Meeting – Frank Bauer
 
          Frank let everyone know that he just returned from a UN meeting in Austria.  He said this meeting used a hybrid format with some folks attending in person and others attending online.   Last month’s Hamvention was held Face to Face.  This month’s Friedrichshafen will be Face to Face.  Given this, Frank said he hopes we will be able to meet in person for our Eye to Eye meeting next year with a hybrid option.  Next year will be the 40th anniversary of Owen Garriott’s first use of ham radio in space.  Perhaps we will have a meeting in the spring and another one in late fall.  Think about this as something to discuss during the Ear to Ear meeting. 
 
          Referring to this year’s Ear to Ear meeting, Frank said we need to refine Oliver’s tentative plans for the meeting to actual details.  We need to know what team members are planning to have presentations (let officers know).  Each delegation is expected to have a report as is each committee.  These reports are due by July 5. 
. 
 
Any Other Business
          Shizuo shared his report on frequency coordination with the Chinese Space Agency.  Shizuo shared this info and link:  “You can get the information about the frequencies by accessing to http://www.amsat.org.uk/iaru/ and going to the section “Satellites for which frequencies have been coordinated” and selecting “CSS ARC satellite”.
          Graham reported that he worked with IARU coordination.  Frank thanked Shizuo for bringing up this information.   ITU Coordination Group and Space Frequency Coordination Group are working on plans for the far side of the moon and beyond.  Glenn said that his group is working with their regulators at the World Radio Conference.  

          Frank thanked everyone for the depth and breadth of what they do for ARISS.
 
Next meeting:  Ear to Ear meeting  July 19 to July 22.
 

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
May 17, 2022 – 1100 UTC
 
Participants:  
Frank Bauer 
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan  
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
Satoshi Yasuda
 
Unable to attend: 
Oliver Amend 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan 
Emanuele D’Andria
Rita DeHart
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter 
Tony Hutchison 
David Jordan 
Peter Kofler 
Michel Nawrocki
Ken Nichols 
Gordon Scannell 
Graham Shirville
Marty Schulman
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
 
Interpreter:  Anya Ezhevskaya
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
          Frank welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.  He said that many in North America are getting ready to go to Xenia, Ohio, for Hamvention, the largest ham radio convention in North America.  He’s looking forward to seeing many folks in person for over two years and looking forward to the ARISS team meeting in person next year.
 
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir
 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on April 19, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting.  Rosalie had a suggested change about the SSTV event and Armand had sent in an adjustment about the team working on the awards for that event.  Given those changes, Dave Taylor made a motion to accept the minutes. Rosalie seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage with those adjustments.
 
2. Axiom-1:  Lessons Learned -  Frank Bauer
          [Informational]
 
          Frank said that he had received many great comments from ARISS team members involved in the Axiom-1 (Ax-1) contacts.  Frank, Ana, and Kenneth combined the comments into a one page official ‘lessons learned’ document for NASA. 
          Frank attended a virtual meeting with Axiom on Ax-1.   He offered to them some suggestions to improve our collaboration and operations for future Axiom private astronaut missions.
          Suggested improvements included some changes to the ARISS facility Payload Integration Agreement (PIA). A segment of the PIA documents agreements between ARISS, Axiom and NASA on Axiom private astronaut missions.  Specifically, the ARISS team recommended a preflight communications briefing to best articulate ARISS operations processes and how with Private astronauts and their teams would engage.  Another salient point was to limit the number of school contacts to be performed during the shorter 7-10 day missions.  For Ax-1 ARISS conducted 6 contacts.  3 contacts for these short-duration missions was recommended. The lessons learned meeting with Axiom is scheduled for May 25.
 
          In addition, Frank, Kenneth, Ana, and ARISS-USA Director of Engineering Randy Berger, plan to meet with Axiom sometime in the future at their facility in Houston.  Axiom is one of the first commercial space stations – an important future initiative as part of ARISS 2.0.  Glenn commented that this is an important document that deals with many of the issues we experienced.  He will share these comments with his team. 
 
3. Reminder of Ear to Ear Meeting – Frank Bauer
 
          Frank referred everyone to Oliver’s chart about the Ear to Ear meeting, which will be held from July 17 to July 22.  Everyone was reminded to generate and submit regional and committee reports in advance of these meetings. 
 
Each region delegation is to create a report. 
 
Committee reports expected include:
- Public relations: Dave Jordan
- Operations:  Frank
- Sustainability and Funding:  Frank
- Technical Support and Evaluation:  Oliver
- Ad Hoc Awards:  Armand
- Ad Hoc Ham TV:  Gaston
- Ad Hoc SSTV Experiment Team:  Oliver
 
          All reports are due by July 5 so that we can distribute them to everyone to read in advance of the Ear to Ear meetings.  This will help all get up to speed on what is happening in ARISS and will allow us to focus our discussions on more strategic efforts. 
 
4. IARU Frequency Coordination – Frank Bauer
 
Frank said that ARISS received a request from the IARU satellite frequency coordinator lead, Hans Timmerman, about our ARISS frequencies. The intent was to ensure there is no conflict with the frequencies that the Chinese space station plan to use. He gave this confidential information to Hans, with assurance that the IARU team will keep this data private and just to use it to resolve the frequency issues with the Chinese space station. Frank said that he is glad that the IARU reached out to us for this info. If anyone hears about the frequencies that the Chinese space station will use, please let Frank and the ARISS ops team know.
 
5. Upcoming Deployment and Testing of 6 CubeSats – Sergey Samburov
 
          Sergey effusively greeted everyone on this telecon.  He said that he anticipates a big activity with the Southwest State University in Kursk.  Six CubeSats are already on the ISS.  Two more will go up in July.  These are Tsiolkovsky satellites, named in honor of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and will mark his 165th birthday. 
          The first six satellites are being prepped for deployment.  They will be running tests on these satellites as they are flying over Kursk and parts of Europe.  Sergey will let folks know when these tests are being conducted. 
          Frank thanked Sergey for this info and asked him to be sure to let ARISS-I members know when the tests are being conducted so that they can listen in on the tests.  Frank also asked Sergey about the next SSTV event.  Lou asked about the format of the SSTV images.  Sergey replied that they generally use PD 120 for downlink and JPEG for image development. 
          Frank said that there are plans to install the new radio in the Russian Service Module on May 25 and suggested that maybe we can set one radio up in packet mode and the other in voice repeater mode.  Sergey said that sounded like a good idea.
 
Any Other Business
 
          Frank thanked everyone ‘for all you do for ARISS.’  It is great to see your impact on schools around the world. 

          Frank thanked Anya for her interpretation.
 
Next meeting:  June 21, 2022
 

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
April 19, 2022 – 1100 UTC
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer 
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan 
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
David Jordan 
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Ken Nichols 
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Marty Schulman
Dave Taylor 
Masanobu Tsuji
Rosalie White 
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Gaston Bertels
Emanuele D’Andria
Rita DeHart
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter 
Tony Hutchison 
Peter Kofler 
Michel Nawrocki 
Eric Oosterbaan  
Sergey Samburov 
Gordon Scannell 
Graham Shirville
Mark Steiner
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
          Frank welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.  He let everyone know that he had received the sad news that Gaston Bertels’ wife, Miriam, had passed away on Monday.  They had been married for over 67 years.
 
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir
 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on March 15, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting.  Rosalie made a motion to accept the minutes. Darin seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
 
2. Ear to Ear International Meeting in 2022 -  Oliver Amend
          [Informational]
 
          Oliver stated that the feedback we received for the Ear to Ear meeting this year indicated that the third week in July is the preferred week.  It will follow the same/similar schedule as last year, running from Tuesday to Friday.  Possible topics to add include Continuation of SSTV Awards and Private astronaut flights.  Delegates, if you have suggestions for other topics, please let the ARISS I officers know.
         
 
3.  SSTV Cosmonautics Day/ Women In Space Event – Oliver Amend
          [Informational]
       
Sergey is not available for today’s meeting so Oliver will direct the presentation of this topic. He first called upon Marty Schulman. Marty said that he adjusted the slides that were to be included in this event and sharpened the images and added in the background the flag of the country of the astronaut being featured. Next up was Will Marchant. Will said this was a short event, only 2 days long. As a result, the numbers are lower but the comments that came in are good. There was a good number of self-reporting students and teachers involved in this event. He congratulated everyone involved and supporting this event. Rosalie thanked Will for the available data. SSTV is a wonderful ARISS activity.
Frank reported that the timing of this event was scheduled to celebrate Cosmonautics Day (April 12). Schedulers had to work around the flight of Axiom-1, which had a couple of changes to its launch date.
Armand said that there were more than 1000 applications for awards for this event. He has not had time to analyze the data. He expressed thanks to
             - ARISS Russia for bringing the event and transmitting the images.
             - ARISS Ad-hoc Awards Committee members, for their fast cooperation on
             arrangements of the ARISS SSTV award,
             - To all the ARISS people involved in the event, especially those who made the
              graphics, which were so well done that even with less than perfect reception,
             their content was recognizable.
             - Micol Ivancic IU2LXR and ISS FanClub for their good work on social media to
              support the SSTV event and the ARISS SSTV award.
 
             Frank thanked Armand and the team in Poland for their quick efforts to prepare the SSTV awards.
             Oliver thanked Armand and his team for generating the awards.  He thanked Marty for the modern looking images.  He thanked Will for the data and comments.  He thanked everyone involved in the program.
            
 
4.  Axiom Flights – Frank Bauer
Frank presented an ARISS-Axiom-1 retrospective.Axiom-1 launched on April 8. Private astronauts Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe made 6 successful ARISS contacts with schools during their time on the ISS, a direct one in Israel and 5 telebridge contacts in Canada. These contacts were great but, but as with any new initiative, there were challenges.
Axiom is the first commercial company to send astronauts to the ISS. Axiom is building modules for the ISS that will have their own solar panels. These modules can become independent and decoupled from the ISS in the future, which is how human spaceflight in low earth orbit could evolve in the future. This would be part of the ARISS 2.0 mission.
There were a lot of lessons learned from the Axiom-1 flight. We need to decide on a future plan or if this is a one-time thing. We need to have a formal, signed document about our expectations and stick to it. Frank asked ARISS folks involved in the Axiom activity to please send to the ARISS-I officers their ‘lessons learned’ by one week from today.
Oliver said that the Eytan Stibbe’s contact with the Israeli school was his first time as a mentor. He learned a lot from the Canadian contacts which preceded the Israeli one. He gave thanks to Kenneth and Charlie for their help and for Charlie’s fast and accurate response in maintaining the Ops database. It was a good experience for us – we learned from this private company.
Kenneth said that operationally, things went pretty well. This short flight had them trying to cram a month’s worth of contacts in one week, which was especially challenging. Charlie had a lot to keep up with.
Rosalie thanked all the volunteers involved in this.
Chet said that the Axiom flight showed a transition from a government-run space program to working with a commercial entity - Axiom, SpaceX, and other private interests. We have to adapt to working with folks who work at lightningfast speeds. Frank responded saying that indeed we have a challenge to support. Dave Taylor said that we need to make it clear that we are providing an educational service for students, not a public outreach event. Shizuo said that we should support school contacts with private astronauts in the future.
Rosalie let the team know that Bruce Hunter passed along a media hit from a school in Canada that mentioned the ARISS program and Mark Pathy.
       
  
AOB (Any other business)
 
          Frank thanked Shizuo for the information about the Chinese frequency coordination during last month’s ARISS-I meeting.  Frank has been working with the IARU to avoid interference between the Chinese space station radio and the ARISS systems on the ISS. 
          Frank reports that, based upon his presentation at HamSCI and other organization’s requesting ARISS partnerships, there is interest in preforming ionosphere and space weather observations/transmissions on ISS using the high frequency bands, like 10 m and 20 m.
 
          Oliver said that the SSTV Experiment Committee is planning for the next event which will be sometime between April and June.  They will use the SSTV gallery.
 
          There is an official ISS Facebook page.
 
          Frank thanked everyone for attending this meeting.
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1100 UTC on May 17, 2022.
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
March 15, 2022 – 1100 UTC
 
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer 
Emanuele D’Andria
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Ana Guzman
Bertus Husken
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan  
Jan Poppeliers 
Sergey Samburov 
Marty Schulman
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
 
Interpreter:  Alexandre Khalimov
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan 
Rita DeHart
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Bruce Hunter 
Tony Hutchison 
Micol Ivancic
Peter Kofler 
David Jordan 
Michel Nawrocki 
Ken Nichols 
Kenneth Ransom 
Gordon Scannell 
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO           Frank welcomed everyone to this teleconference and said that we work together as a family to support activities on the ISS.  New activities coming up involve Axiom flights.  Two of the four astronauts who will be on those flights will be involved in ARISS contacts with schools in Canada and Israel.  ARISS-Canada and ARISS-Europe will be supporting those contacts respectively. 
          As these commercial programs continue, we will work with these commercial astronauts.  “I’m impressed with the number of ARISS contacts around the world” Frank said.  “This is only possible because we are a ‘close family’ and our passion to make ARISS goals possible.”

 1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir
 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on February 15, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Ciaran made a motion to accept the minutes. Glenn seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.

 2. Face to Face or Ear to Ear International Meeting in 2022 -  Oliver Amend
          [Informational]
 
          Oliver said that he recommends for the Ear to Ear meeting this year over the Face to Face meeting.  Though COVID protocols are relaxing in Europe, they are not yet relaxed enough that all ARISS regions will be able to attend.  Oliver looked at the calendar for weeks with minimal known conflicts like major hamfests and found three in July that should work for our meeting:  July 5 to 8, July 12 to 15, or July 19 to 22. 
          Formally, as a delegate, Oliver recommends we have an Ear to Ear meeting and invites others to comment on this.
          Rosalie said that an Ear to Ear meeting is not what we’d prefer but it is what we need to do.

          Shizuo said that intenational travel is not clear yet but may be clear by this summer so that we could have a Face to Face meeting but we can’t decide on that at this point because airline fares are high due to conditions in the world. So, he offers a hybrid meeting – meet in person if you can, if not, meet virtually.
          Oliver summarized the comments made by saying that we have three options to choose from – a Face to Face meeting, an Ear to Ear meeting, or a hybrid meeting.  Oliver proposes we meet during the first week option (July 5 to 8).  Frank said the we’ll go with the Ear to Ear format since no one spoke up definitively for the Face to Face format.  Ciaran said that he would not be available for the first two proposed meeting weeks.  Ana said that Kenneth may be unavailable during that first week also.
          Frank asked everyone to think about the proposed dates and vote via email or at the next meeting.  Delegates, especially, should send their thoughts to the ARISS-I officers.  Interested others should send in their votes, too. 
          Martha will send out a survey via email asking for votes of preference(s) and weeks folks cannot support.  It is requested that these votes be sent in by March 25.  
          Oliver reminded folks that he will need their reports for the Ear to Ear meeting plus other items to be brought up including SSTV.  (See list of expected reports at end of minutes.)  Rosalie asked if there will be a URL set up to send those reports and other things for the meeting.  Frank said yes, we will set up a DropBox for such things. 
        
 3. SSTV Experiment Committee Status – Oliver Amend
Oliver said that the SSTV Committee has met 13 times since it was formed, roughly a meeting every two weeks.That committee has set up a Wiki to share information.They performed an experiment on February 20 using KG-STV software – Spaces over Europe which was organized by Eric, Jan, and Claudio using different modes.Ten images were sent and seen over Europe.They will continue doing different experiments using HAM DRM and Easy Pal software from April to June.Armand and the PZK team will coordinate certificates.ARISS telebridge stations are invited to participate.
Rosalie asked how many participants have been involved in receiving the images so far? Jan replied that 570 folks so far.Rosalie said ‘congratulations’ and that this is impressive. Will asked if there will be a certificate issued this time?Yes but there are other certificates being issued out there.This committee is staying focused on the experiments.Jan added that folks who uploaded a report were already sent a reply.
Rosalie said thank you to the team and congratulations to all involved in this.Dave Taylor said offering a certificate could encourage folks to provide feedback.Oliver agreed with Dave but said that certificates are a low priority right now; the focus is on the development of process not the issuing of certificates.
Frank thanked Oliver and the whole team for developing this from both an educational and operations viewpoint.
 
  
Ad Hoc
 
          Shizuo said that the Chinese Space Agency will be sending up equipment for a Amateur Radio station to their space station.  It is expected to be launched during the third quarter of this year.  The radio equipment will be able to send UHF/VHF signals involving crew voice, repeaters, digipeaters, and SSTV.  Frank thanked Shizuo for sharing this important info.  Sergey asked if antennas for this will be installed outside permanently or have to be put out each time.  Frank replied that this info is too new to know right now.  We want to make sure there will be no interference between their signals and ours.  Sergey added that there were similar concerns between signals sent from the Space Shuttle and MIR thirty years ago.  We need to check with the IARU to see what frequencies China applied for.
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1100 UTC on April 19, 2022.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

Reports expected for the Ear to Ear meeting:

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
February 15, 2022 – 1200 UTC
 
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer  
Darin Cowan 
Rita DeHart
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Marty Schulman
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
 
Interpreter:  Rita Dalinina Baker
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke
Gaston Bertels                                                                                      
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Francesco De Paolis
Martin Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario
Ana Guzman
Bruce Hunter 
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison 
Micol Ivancic
Peter Kofler 
David Jordan 
Michel Nawrocki 
Ken Nichols 
Eric Oosterbaan  
Gordon Scannell 
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
 
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 
          Frank welcomed everyone to this meeting and said that he just got back from the Orlando Hamcation hamfest.  While he was in the ARISS booth there, many people came by and expressed appreciation for what we are doing to keep amateur radio alive and well on the ISS.          The first Axiom crew will launch no earlier than the end of March.  ARISS plans to conduct contacts with up to six schools, five in Canada and one in Israel.  We hope this is the beginning of a relationship with Axiom.  Axiom has plans to have their own space station eventually.
          Frank thanked everyone for their support of the ARISS program. Folks around the world are noticing what we are doing and are appreciative.  

1.  Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir

 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on January 18, 2022 Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Rosalie made a motion to accept the minutes. Dave Taylor seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
 
      2.   Face to Face or Ear to Ear International Meeting in 2022 -  Oliver Amend
          [Informational]
 
          Oliver reported that he looked at the calendar for June through August at weeks (Tuesday through Friday) when this meeting could be held without interfering with known conflicts such as major hamfests.  The meeting will include the usual Welcome Day, Education Day, and Wrap Up Day.  We will expect reports from committees and regions.
          Previous meetings were held in Japan in 2015, in Houston/USA in 2016, in Rome in 2017, in Maryland/USA in 2018, and in Canada in 2019.  The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to change to virtual online Ear to Ear meetings in 2020 and 2021.  We need to decide if we will have a Face to Face or Ear to Ear meeting this year.  If we opt for Face to Face, we need to decide where we want to have it.  Options for that include ESA, KSC, Bremen, or other places.
          Frank asked for comments and suggestions.
          Stefan said that the Covid situation is improving in Europe at this time.  Things could be okay by June.  Perhaps we could have a hybrid format with folks choosing to attend in person or online.
          Shizuo said that we don’t know at this point if travel restrictions will be lifted by June.  We may know more about this by the end of March.  Rosalie concurred with Shizuo and suggested we wait until the end of March to decide.
          Glenn said that is important that we meet in person this year – it has been such a long time.  It will be a challenge, of course, to predict what the Covid situation will be in the summer.  Restrictions are being lifted around the world but there may be a new variant to deal with.  Let’s plan for a hybrid meeting and let circumstances determine how people will attend.
          Sergey said that we haven’t seen each other in a long time.  He would like to demonstrate some new equipment.  He will be busy in August with some EVAs and with a 100th anniversary celebration in September. Today, there will be a launch that will carry 6 satellites to the ISS.  Eventually, 4 more satellites will be sent up.  Frank congratulated Sergey on the launching of the satellites and on the launching of the Kenwood radio that will be installed in the Russian segment.
          Frank summarized what has been said so far about the Ear to Ear vs. Face to Face meeting by saying that the world is not yet stable as far as the pandemic is concerned.  Perhaps we could get together in our own countries but not internationally early this summer.  We need to be mindful of the dates for the AMSAT-UK and AMSAT-NA meetings.  It looks like it will be challenging to find a date for a Face to Face meeting.  Perhaps we will know more next month.
          Oliver said that ESA ESTEC does not know if they could host such a meeting in June.  Oliver recommends we have an Ear to Ear meeting again this year but would be okay with a hybrid meeting format.  He agrees to wait until next month to decide.

     3.  Extension of Waiver Request Process – Frank Bauer
          [Informational]

Frank said that a direct or telebridge contact requires a waiver request which helps the school think through and show how they plan to mitigate the virus risk across the school (students teachers, administrators), hams, and others present .A multipoint telebridge contact does not require a waiver request.The current waiver request policy is scheduled to end on June 30th.This policy is being extended to the end of 2022.The Covid situation is not stable yet, Frank said.If things get better, the waiver request policy can be removed in the future.
Frank recognized the Technical Mentors for their help with this.We can see how this helps schools think through their plan for this.This is more work for the Technical Mentors but this process minimizes school contacts being cancelled at the last minute.Frank thanked Stefan for pulling all the waiver requests together so ARISS-Officers can evaluate them efficiently.
       

      4. Status of the SSTV Experiment Committee – Oliver Amend
           [Informational]

Oliver stated that the committee started in August 2021.Its purpose is to look at new SSTV modes and opportunities to conduct SSTV through the Columbus module radio voice repeater before the ARISS Raspberry Pi is on board (which will allow on-orbit downlinks of SSTV). They have met 11 times since then.Key members of the committee include Oliver DG6BCE, Eric PA2EON, Claudio IK1SLD, Jan ON7UX, Ciaran M0XTD, Lou W5DID, and Kenneth N5VHO.Several modes for SSTV have been discussed including PD120, ROBOT, KF-STV, and HAM DR.
A Wiki has been set up at wiki.amsat-on.be to collect and display information about this project.The first test using KF-STV software, which was created by a ham in Japan, is scheduled to be run for 5 passes on February 20.The next event will use HAM DR and will run 5 to 6 weeks later.
Sergey asked for a copy of Oliver’s PowerPoint slides after the meeting.He also asked for a description of the KF-STV software.
 
 
Ad Hoc
 
          Graham asked if there are any updates about Ham TV.  Frank said that Kaiser Italia has the Fed Ex shipping invoice but has not sent it yet so there is no news.
 
          Frank thanked everyone for attending the meeting today.
.  
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1200 UTC on March 15, 2022.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
January 18, 2022 – 1200 UTC
 
Participants:  
Oliver Amend 
Frank Bauer  
Gaston Bertels                                                                                      
Shizuo Endo
Darin Cowan 
Emanuele D’Andria
Stefan Dombrowski
Ana Guzman
David Jordan 
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant 
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan 
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan  
Jan Poppeliers 
Kenneth Ransom 
Sergey Samburov 
Marty Schulman
Dave Taylor 
Rosalie White 
Satoshi Yasuda 
 
Interpreter:  Gregory Khasin
 
Unable to attend: 
Fabio Azzarello 
Kerry Banke  
Armand Budzianowski
Francesco De Paolis
Martine Diggins
Gianpietro Ferrario 
Bruce Hunter 
Bertus Husken
Tony Hutchison 
Micol Ivancic
Peter Kofler 
Keigo Komuro 
Chet Latawiec 
Michel Nawrocki 
Ken Nichols 
Gordon Scannell 
Graham Shirville 
Mark Steiner 
Masanobu Tsuji
 
 
Meeting Agenda  
 
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the GoTo Meeting screen. 
 
Welcome—Frank Bauer, KA3HDO   
          Frank welcomed everyone to the meeting and wished everyone “Happy New Year.”  He continued by saying that November marked the 25th anniversary of the existence of the ARISS team.  December marked the 21st anniversary of continuous ARISS school contacts. 
          This year, Sergey will be launching 10 satellites.  We anticipate 1 or 2 Axiom flights.  Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti should be back onboard the ISS making contacts.   HAM TV is ready to ship to Houston with hopes of having it back on the ISS by the end of the year.  The ARISS *STAR* program has been fully funded for one year.  We expect additional SSTV events in the future.  In other words, 2022 should be an exciting year!
 

1.  Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Frank Bauer and Martha Muir

 
          For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on December 21, 2021, Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Darin made a motion to accept the minutes. Ciaran seconded that motion. The minutes was adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
 

1. December SSTV Event featuring Lunar Explorations – Sergey Samburov, Will Marchant, Marty Schulman, Oliver Amend, and Frank Bauer

           
Sergey thanked the many folks involved in this event and said that the event shows how unified we are as a team.  He thanked the US team for organizing and sending him the great images.  He also thanked Frank for his great logistical planning.  With that, everyone received what was needed on time. 
          Sergey’s team is planning to launch 10 micro-satellites this year.  He is hoping Samantha Cristoforetti will get involved in this.  The first six satellites are presently being loaded on a Progress vehicle with hopes they will be on the ISS by some point in February.  Eventually, the satellites will be deployed outside the ISS.  It is hoped that hams around the world can get involved in the testing of those satellites sometime in July or August. By the end of the year, they will be testing a low bandwidth TV system that will allow high school students in Russia to send images to the ISS.
          Frank thanked Sergey for all his efforts and for letting us know what is on the horizon.  He asked Sergey to let us know the frequencies that will be used to for the testing of the satellites so that we can get that information out to the Amateur Radio community.
          Will Marchant presented the SSTV Image Gallery report.  He said that this SSTV event, which ran from December 26 to December 31, was the second most popular SSTV event (behind the 20th anniversary event),  He thanked Sergey for making sure the images got up to the ISS in a useable format and Marty for preparing the slide deck.  He also thanked the review team that chose “best of” images from the 16,000 images sent in to the gallery.  Images were sent in from every continent except Antarctica.  About half of the images came in from Europe.  There were about 8,000 unique visitors to the website.  They visited the site about 12,000 times.  276 pre-college students and 348 pre-college teachers and 310 college students and 685 college educators visited the site.
          Sergey chimed in to thank Armand and Slavic for preparing the diplomas for this event.     
          Oliver presented Armand’s report.  Oliver began by thanking Armand and Slavic for developing the diplomas.  This was a very successful event.  More than 3900 diplomas have been claimed.  The majority of those went to hams, some to students using Software Defined Radio dongles and some were not identified.
          The signals were good and strong.  A lot of handheld radios were used.  Some phone apps were used, too. 
          Oliver shared an interesting report from Armand about a ham in South Africa.  That man said that “his five year old son is very excited to get these images.” 
           On Armand’s behalf, Oliver thanked everyone who contributed images to this project.
          Marty supported SSTV image development.  He said that his use of an Apple computer made the images in a different file format (JPEG vs JPG) than what the cosmonauts could use with the on-board SSTV software.  This caused some initial problems that were quickly corrected by the cosmonauts.  Marty said that he created a document to use in future SSTV events that should help new SSTV team members to quickly support the SSTV project.  He said it will eventually be available on the ARISS website.
           
          Oliver began his report by saying that the diplomas for these events are very popular.  Unfortunately, there are about 15 awards popping up that are not from ARISS.  Some of these non-ARISS approved awards are using the ARISS logo.  These include one from a Turkish club and another from Indonesia. These unofficial awards are causing confusion.  Only the PZK award and the Russian award are the “official” ARISS awards.  Oliver asked the team for their advice on a forward action.  Stefan suggested we allow it but control it.  Have groups register with us to use the logo.  Sergey asked if the ARISS logo has a copyright.  Frank said no, it doesn’t but it does require permission from ARISS to use.  Perhaps we need to set up a permission system set up in advance of future SSTV events. Oliver and Shizuo said that they had tried to contact the groups improperly using the logo.  So far they had failed to get a response from them.  Glenn suggested we add to the diplomas something like “these are the official diplomas” or “approved by ARISS.”  Dave Taylor suggested that identify the ARISS SSTV Gallery and the PZK diploma site as ARISS official sites.  Some non-ARISS organizations are trying to raise money from folks who think they may be contributing to the real ARISS program.  Gaston said that perhaps the official diplomas have a signature from Frank or other ARISS-I official.  Rosalie suggested we let each of the IARU regions know about the official certificates and to have something unique and special on our certificates like something related to the series that would only be available from the official certificate.  Sergey suggested for the upcoming SSTV event in April, that we post the official certificate design on our website. 
Frank summarized those suggestions by saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This shows how successful this program is.  Perhaps we need to send out a big press release to clarify which sites are the official SSTV sites.  We need to identify and contact the folks who are doing this.  Given the hundreds of hours of ARISS volunteer support involved in an SSTV event, these organizations should, rightfully, divert these donations to ARISS.  If they want to help with our program, we could let them know of some opportunities to help.  We could put something unique on our diplomas such as a QR code that would take folks to an official ARISS site. Perhaps we need to get the ARISS logo trademarked.
Frank thanked everyone for their thoughts on this.
 
 
Ad Hoc
 
          Ciaran asked if there were any news about this year’s Face to Face meeting.  Frank said that we are going to hold off on this discussion until the February meeting.
 
          Frank thanked everyone for a very good meeting.  There was a good dialog.  The SSTV events are so popular that folks are copying us.  It takes a worldwide effort to put these events on, selecting the themes, gathering images, processing the images, and finally Sergey’s working with the cosmonauts to send out the images.  
 
 The next meeting will begin at 1200 UTC on February 15, 2022.
 
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary

For earlier meetings, see Archives.