Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
February 21, 2023 – 1200 UTC
Participants
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Francesco De Paolis
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
David Jordan
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Diana Schuler
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Interpreter: Anna Boyer
Meeting Agenda
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen.
Welcome—Frank Bauer
Frank welcomed and thanked everyone for attending today’s meeting. He said that there were lots of exciting things happening last month and lots of exciting things to come this month as well as in the months to come. The Face to Face meeting is coming up in April. Progress is being made on Ham TV recertification and flight and on the development and deployment of the ARISS Radio Kit (SPARKI).
The Axiom-2 flight is coming up and ARISS will be supporting some private astronaut contacts. More details will come in future meetings. Talks are also happening about ARISS operations on Axiom-3. We need to continue to network and develop contacts with commercial space station organizations as that will be our future in Low Earth Orbit.
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes – Frank Bauer, KA3HDO & Martha Muir, W4MSA [Decisional]
For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on January 17, 2023, Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Gaston made a motion to accept the minutes. Rosalie seconded that motion. The minutes were adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
2. 2023 Face to Face meeting status update – Oliver Amend [Informational]
Oliver reminded everyone that the F2F meeting will be held April 18 to April 20, with April 21 as a wrap up day. Tuesday will focus on Welcome and Education. Wednesday will focus on ARISS 2.0. Thursday will be focused on special interest topics such as BATC, the British Amateur Television Club.
Oliver is still working on hotel reservations. He hopes to have all of that resolved within 24 hours. He will send out details about hotels and transportation to ESA ESTEC Noordwijk site soon. Oliver is still working with ESA to accommodate Sergey’s attendance at the F2F meeting.
3. Introduction of new ARISS-USA Project Manager for STEREO – Frank Bauer [Informational]
Frank introduced Diana Schuler as the new Project Manager for STEREO (Student and Teacher Education via Radio Experimentation and Operations). The STEREO grant from ARDC pays for part of our contact operations costs, for teacher workshops and for the development and deployment of SPARKI (Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative). The SPARKI ARISS Radio Kit will be given to schools and informal education organizations. It includes lessons and equipment on waves, electronics, a self-contained SDR attached to a Raspberry Pi, and more. There will be ‘teach the teachers’ workshops where teachers will learn about ARISS and about how to teach with the equipment in the kit. We plan to roll out the SPARKI kit in June at a ARISS Education Workshop.
Diana said that she worked for NASA at the Johnson Space Center on the space shuttle and Artemis/Orion Cockpit Displays. She spent a few years at NASA HQ working as the Deputy Chief Engineer on what is now called Artemis. She came on board with ARISS in January.
4. Ham TV Status – Frank Bauer [Informational]
Frank showed an image of Samantha Christoferreti with the Ham TV system on the ISS. Kaiser Italia shipped the repaired unit to NASA in late November. This was then forwarded on to Kerry Banke. Kerry has performed a battery of tests in his lab in San Diego to prepare the Ham TV unit for flight and to ensure it is functioning as it did before. We are going to start out operating the system as it was last time it was on the ISS. It will not be connected to the IORS yet, but we expect that to happen after we get permission to integrate Ham TV with the multi-voltage power supply. Once that occurs, we will not have to share a power receptacle with other payloads.
We are working with ISS National Lab and NASA to get the system launched on the Northrup-Grumman-19 (NG-19) cargo mission, which is currently scheduled for early May.
Frank showed a picture of Kenneth Ransom prepping the Ham TV system for astronaut training. Frequency tests have been completed; we are waiting for the final report from NASA. There is also testing to confirm a new HDMI camera will work with the Ham TV unit and an attached HDMI converter. Testing has been done with the HAM TV unit alone, with the IORS, and with the HDMI converter/overlay unit. All are working well. As of February 2, the unit was delivered to NASA CMC (Cargo Manifesting) to be launched on NG-19. We are currently finalizing the flight certification paperwork. It is working its way through the approval process; significant progress has been made towards getting it ready to fly.
Graham asked how much power the unit has. Frank said no changes were made in the system from how it operated before so about 10 watts. Gaston added ‘nominal power’ is 10 watts. There is loss of power in the cable but gain from the antenna. Frank said for more information, contact Kerry Banke, Lou McFadin, and Randy Berger. Frank said that he is super excited to get this system back in operation.
Emanuele thanked Frank for taking care of this. Rosalie said she would like to amplify Emanuele’s comments. This is a huge project with a lot of parts to get this done. Thanks. Oliver added his thanks to ESA and NASA for getting the system down from the ISS and thanks to Kaiser Italia for taking care of repairing the unit. Graham added that BATC and AMSAT-UK are working to re-establish the Ham TV reception facility at Goonhilly Ground Station in Cornwall, UK. Hopefully, it will be completed in time for testing in April or May.
Frank summarized all this by saying this took an international effort to get this accomplished. He is looking forward to the first video images to beam down from the fixed system. (Ciaran raised his fists in excitement.) We need to return borrowed equipment to Kaiser Italia, perhaps at the Face to Face meeting.
Frank turned over the running of the meeting to Oliver.
5. International Talent Release Forms – Oliver [Informational]
Oliver said that we are a volunteer group. An important part of our operation is public relations. We need signed talent release forms so that we can share photos and videos with our sponsors. To get funding from NASA, ESA, and others, we need to send numbers about involvement and attendance AND photos. If we want to please the crew, we should uplink images of the kids – for which we need the talent release forms.
Carol Jackson maintains the database of schools but has only about 10% of the talent release forms for them. Mentors should aim to get the completed forms well before the contact. Maybe 2-3 months before.
This will be one of the topics at the Face-to-Face meeting. We may set up a subcommittee to deal with this. Bertus recommended that we include the talent release forms with the submission of the questions. Stefan said that 1) we need talent release forms from photographers and 2) European talent release forms should be stored in Europe. We should keep records if the schools have sent them in.
Oliver summarized this by asking everyone to send their ideas about this to the ARISS-I officers. Any input is welcome.
Any Other Business
Oliver pointed out that there are time changes coming in the US and in Europe. The March meeting will begin at 1100 UTC.
Oliver thanked everyone for their participation in today’s meeting. Sergey sent his thanks to everyone.
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
February 21, 2023 – 1200 UTC
Participants
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Emanuele D’Andria
Francesco De Paolis
Stefan Dombrowski
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
David Jordan
Glenn MacDonell
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Sergey Samburov
Diana Schuler
Graham Shirville
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Interpreter: Anna Boyer
Meeting Agenda
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen.
Welcome—Frank Bauer
Frank welcomed and thanked everyone for attending today’s meeting. He said that there were lots of exciting things happening last month and lots of exciting things to come this month as well as in the months to come. The Face to Face meeting is coming up in April. Progress is being made on Ham TV recertification and flight and on the development and deployment of the ARISS Radio Kit (SPARKI).
The Axiom-2 flight is coming up and ARISS will be supporting some private astronaut contacts. More details will come in future meetings. Talks are also happening about ARISS operations on Axiom-3. We need to continue to network and develop contacts with commercial space station organizations as that will be our future in Low Earth Orbit.
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes – Frank Bauer, KA3HDO & Martha Muir, W4MSA [Decisional]
For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on January 17, 2023, Martha recorded the minutes and distributed the file to ARISS Delegates prior to this ARISS-I meeting. Gaston made a motion to accept the minutes. Rosalie seconded that motion. The minutes were adopted without dissent and will be sent to Carol Jackson to be posted on the ARISS-I webpage.
2. 2023 Face to Face meeting status update – Oliver Amend [Informational]
Oliver reminded everyone that the F2F meeting will be held April 18 to April 20, with April 21 as a wrap up day. Tuesday will focus on Welcome and Education. Wednesday will focus on ARISS 2.0. Thursday will be focused on special interest topics such as BATC, the British Amateur Television Club.
Oliver is still working on hotel reservations. He hopes to have all of that resolved within 24 hours. He will send out details about hotels and transportation to ESA ESTEC Noordwijk site soon. Oliver is still working with ESA to accommodate Sergey’s attendance at the F2F meeting.
3. Introduction of new ARISS-USA Project Manager for STEREO – Frank Bauer [Informational]
Frank introduced Diana Schuler as the new Project Manager for STEREO (Student and Teacher Education via Radio Experimentation and Operations). The STEREO grant from ARDC pays for part of our contact operations costs, for teacher workshops and for the development and deployment of SPARKI (Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative). The SPARKI ARISS Radio Kit will be given to schools and informal education organizations. It includes lessons and equipment on waves, electronics, a self-contained SDR attached to a Raspberry Pi, and more. There will be ‘teach the teachers’ workshops where teachers will learn about ARISS and about how to teach with the equipment in the kit. We plan to roll out the SPARKI kit in June at a ARISS Education Workshop.
Diana said that she worked for NASA at the Johnson Space Center on the space shuttle and Artemis/Orion Cockpit Displays. She spent a few years at NASA HQ working as the Deputy Chief Engineer on what is now called Artemis. She came on board with ARISS in January.
4. Ham TV Status – Frank Bauer [Informational]
Frank showed an image of Samantha Christoferreti with the Ham TV system on the ISS. Kaiser Italia shipped the repaired unit to NASA in late November. This was then forwarded on to Kerry Banke. Kerry has performed a battery of tests in his lab in San Diego to prepare the Ham TV unit for flight and to ensure it is functioning as it did before. We are going to start out operating the system as it was last time it was on the ISS. It will not be connected to the IORS yet, but we expect that to happen after we get permission to integrate Ham TV with the multi-voltage power supply. Once that occurs, we will not have to share a power receptacle with other payloads.
We are working with ISS National Lab and NASA to get the system launched on the Northrup-Grumman-19 (NG-19) cargo mission, which is currently scheduled for early May.
Frank showed a picture of Kenneth Ransom prepping the Ham TV system for astronaut training. Frequency tests have been completed; we are waiting for the final report from NASA. There is also testing to confirm a new HDMI camera will work with the Ham TV unit and an attached HDMI converter. Testing has been done with the HAM TV unit alone, with the IORS, and with the HDMI converter/overlay unit. All are working well. As of February 2, the unit was delivered to NASA CMC (Cargo Manifesting) to be launched on NG-19. We are currently finalizing the flight certification paperwork. It is working its way through the approval process; significant progress has been made towards getting it ready to fly.
Graham asked how much power the unit has. Frank said no changes were made in the system from how it operated before so about 10 watts. Gaston added ‘nominal power’ is 10 watts. There is loss of power in the cable but gain from the antenna. Frank said for more information, contact Kerry Banke, Lou McFadin, and Randy Berger. Frank said that he is super excited to get this system back in operation.
Emanuele thanked Frank for taking care of this. Rosalie said she would like to amplify Emanuele’s comments. This is a huge project with a lot of parts to get this done. Thanks. Oliver added his thanks to ESA and NASA for getting the system down from the ISS and thanks to Kaiser Italia for taking care of repairing the unit. Graham added that BATC and AMSAT-UK are working to re-establish the Ham TV reception facility at Goonhilly Ground Station in Cornwall, UK. Hopefully, it will be completed in time for testing in April or May.
Frank summarized all this by saying this took an international effort to get this accomplished. He is looking forward to the first video images to beam down from the fixed system. (Ciaran raised his fists in excitement.) We need to return borrowed equipment to Kaiser Italia, perhaps at the Face to Face meeting.
Frank turned over the running of the meeting to Oliver.
5. International Talent Release Forms – Oliver [Informational]
Oliver said that we are a volunteer group. An important part of our operation is public relations. We need signed talent release forms so that we can share photos and videos with our sponsors. To get funding from NASA, ESA, and others, we need to send numbers about involvement and attendance AND photos. If we want to please the crew, we should uplink images of the kids – for which we need the talent release forms.
Carol Jackson maintains the database of schools but has only about 10% of the talent release forms for them. Mentors should aim to get the completed forms well before the contact. Maybe 2-3 months before.
This will be one of the topics at the Face-to-Face meeting. We may set up a subcommittee to deal with this. Bertus recommended that we include the talent release forms with the submission of the questions. Stefan said that 1) we need talent release forms from photographers and 2) European talent release forms should be stored in Europe. We should keep records if the schools have sent them in.
Oliver summarized this by asking everyone to send their ideas about this to the ARISS-I officers. Any input is welcome.
Any Other Business
Oliver pointed out that there are time changes coming in the US and in Europe. The March meeting will begin at 1100 UTC.
Oliver thanked everyone for their participation in today’s meeting. Sergey sent his thanks to everyone.
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