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
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