Minutes of ARISS International Monthly Meeting
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
September 20, 2022 – 1100 UTC
Participants:
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
David Jordan
Keigo Komuro
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Meeting Agenda
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen.
Welcome—Oliver Amend
Frank turned the leadership of this meeting to Oliver since he was at a place with limited reliable internet. Oliver congratulated the hardware team who put the first Amateur Radio equipment on the Space Shuttle nearly 40 years ago. Our work with this is not done. Lou and others continue this work. Frank noted that the Ericsson equipment sent up remained in use until 2020.
Oliver expressed our thoughts and prayers to those in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth on the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Her husband, Prince Phillip, was patron of the Radio Society of Great Britain and involved with ARISS in the UK.
Oliver pointed out that Gaston celebrated a birthday on September 9. “Happy Birthday, Gaston.”
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Oliver Amend and Martha Muir
[Decisional]
For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on August 16, 2022, 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]
The current plans are to meet at ESA ESTEC from April 17 to April 21. We need to monitor Covid restrictions. Present plans have us meeting in the Escape Center Dance Hall though we might be in the Erasmus building’s auditorium. ESA wants to charge us to use this room but Oliver is trying work with them to get it for free. It has room for 40 people. Please let Oliver know if you know that you can and will attend this meeting for sure.
3. HAM TV update – Oliver Amend and Frank Bauer
[Informational]
Oliver said that the unit needs to be dropped off at FedEx for shipment to Houston. Frank said that we’re hoping to get it on SpaceX 26 to get back to the ISS. Oliver will contact AMSAT Italia board to encourage Kayser Italia to package the equipment up and get it to FedEx for shipment.
4. US Team STEREO project - Frank Bauer
[Informational]
Frank recently spoke at the TAPR Digital Communications Conference. He spoke about our ARISS 2.0 plans and educational activities, particularly our status on the ARDC (Amateur Radio Digital Communications) grant called STEREO—Student and Teacher Education via Radio Experimentation and Operations.
ARISS-USA received a five year, $1.3 million grant from ARDC to support three areas:
- Deploy radio kits to schools
- Hold ‘teach the teachers’ workshops on ARISS and the radio kits
- Sustainment funding for ARISS operations
In 2014, NASA STEM education cut off financial support to ARISS. Since then, we have struggled to keep the ARISS program sustained from an operations perspective. The ARDC grant will provide funding to ARISS operations and keep contact operations going for the next 5 years, allowing ARISS to focus on the development of educational projects, such as the radio kit embedded in STEREO. SPARKI (Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative) is the radio kit component of the STEREO grant. The kit is aimed at middle and high school students. When fully developed, it will be available to schools around the world. The kit includes Slinky springs, to teach about radio waves, a SnapCircuits kit to learn about electrical principals, and an SDR attached to a Raspberry Pi to allow student to understand the invisible radio waves that surround them. SPARKI is designed to be plug and play ready to go.
Frank said that ARISS hopes to roll out the kits by summer of 2023. Summer (and now fall) intern Ashish Dhanalakota has been working to test and revise the kit. Ashish has earned an Amateur Radio license since starting his internship. He and the other two summer interns spoke with Kjell Lindgren on the ISS while at NASA Goddard using the K6DUE station.
Frank thanked ARDC for their support of our programs.
Ciaran asked Frank if he has spoken with the Raspberry Pi folks about supplying the pi’s. Frank replied that this is a good idea. Ciaran said he has some connections to the Raspberry Pi Foundation in England that could help with this. There are supply chain issues plus issues with taxes that will be involved in shipping parts and kits around the world.
Eric and Bertus asked when they would be available to get a kit to start exploring it. Frank said that the manual might be available in a few months but not the kit yet. Both are still being revised. Frank would like suggestions as to which languages the manuals should be made available. Bertus said that it would be nice to have a demo set available for a poster for the Day of Amateur Radio meeting at the end of November.
Any Other Business:
Oliver said we want to establish a sub-committee for the 40th anniversary of ham radio in space meeting to be held in late November or early December of 2023. Please email your nominations, including self-nominations, to the ARISS officers.
Frank thanked Oliver for leading today’s meeting. He said he is proud of our phenomenal team!
Next meeting: October 18, 2022 at 1100 UTC.
Respectfully submitted,
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary
Go To Meeting/Teleconference
September 20, 2022 – 1100 UTC
Participants:
Oliver Amend
Frank Bauer
Gaston Bertels
Armand Budzianowski
Darin Cowan
Shizuo Endo
Bertus Husken
Micol Ivancic
David Jordan
Keigo Komuro
Glenn MacDonell
Will Marchant
Lou McFadin
Ciaran Morgan
Martha Muir
Eric Oosterbaan
Jan Poppeliers
Kenneth Ransom
Dave Taylor
Rosalie White
Satoshi Yasuda
Meeting Agenda
Roll Call—Martha took attendance by using the names shown on the Go To Meeting screen.
Welcome—Oliver Amend
Frank turned the leadership of this meeting to Oliver since he was at a place with limited reliable internet. Oliver congratulated the hardware team who put the first Amateur Radio equipment on the Space Shuttle nearly 40 years ago. Our work with this is not done. Lou and others continue this work. Frank noted that the Ericsson equipment sent up remained in use until 2020.
Oliver expressed our thoughts and prayers to those in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth on the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Her husband, Prince Phillip, was patron of the Radio Society of Great Britain and involved with ARISS in the UK.
Oliver pointed out that Gaston celebrated a birthday on September 9. “Happy Birthday, Gaston.”
1. Call for Acceptance of Minutes—Oliver Amend and Martha Muir
[Decisional]
For the ARISS-International Monthly Meeting on August 16, 2022, 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]
The current plans are to meet at ESA ESTEC from April 17 to April 21. We need to monitor Covid restrictions. Present plans have us meeting in the Escape Center Dance Hall though we might be in the Erasmus building’s auditorium. ESA wants to charge us to use this room but Oliver is trying work with them to get it for free. It has room for 40 people. Please let Oliver know if you know that you can and will attend this meeting for sure.
3. HAM TV update – Oliver Amend and Frank Bauer
[Informational]
Oliver said that the unit needs to be dropped off at FedEx for shipment to Houston. Frank said that we’re hoping to get it on SpaceX 26 to get back to the ISS. Oliver will contact AMSAT Italia board to encourage Kayser Italia to package the equipment up and get it to FedEx for shipment.
4. US Team STEREO project - Frank Bauer
[Informational]
Frank recently spoke at the TAPR Digital Communications Conference. He spoke about our ARISS 2.0 plans and educational activities, particularly our status on the ARDC (Amateur Radio Digital Communications) grant called STEREO—Student and Teacher Education via Radio Experimentation and Operations.
ARISS-USA received a five year, $1.3 million grant from ARDC to support three areas:
- Deploy radio kits to schools
- Hold ‘teach the teachers’ workshops on ARISS and the radio kits
- Sustainment funding for ARISS operations
In 2014, NASA STEM education cut off financial support to ARISS. Since then, we have struggled to keep the ARISS program sustained from an operations perspective. The ARDC grant will provide funding to ARISS operations and keep contact operations going for the next 5 years, allowing ARISS to focus on the development of educational projects, such as the radio kit embedded in STEREO. SPARKI (Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative) is the radio kit component of the STEREO grant. The kit is aimed at middle and high school students. When fully developed, it will be available to schools around the world. The kit includes Slinky springs, to teach about radio waves, a SnapCircuits kit to learn about electrical principals, and an SDR attached to a Raspberry Pi to allow student to understand the invisible radio waves that surround them. SPARKI is designed to be plug and play ready to go.
Frank said that ARISS hopes to roll out the kits by summer of 2023. Summer (and now fall) intern Ashish Dhanalakota has been working to test and revise the kit. Ashish has earned an Amateur Radio license since starting his internship. He and the other two summer interns spoke with Kjell Lindgren on the ISS while at NASA Goddard using the K6DUE station.
Frank thanked ARDC for their support of our programs.
Ciaran asked Frank if he has spoken with the Raspberry Pi folks about supplying the pi’s. Frank replied that this is a good idea. Ciaran said he has some connections to the Raspberry Pi Foundation in England that could help with this. There are supply chain issues plus issues with taxes that will be involved in shipping parts and kits around the world.
Eric and Bertus asked when they would be available to get a kit to start exploring it. Frank said that the manual might be available in a few months but not the kit yet. Both are still being revised. Frank would like suggestions as to which languages the manuals should be made available. Bertus said that it would be nice to have a demo set available for a poster for the Day of Amateur Radio meeting at the end of November.
Any Other Business:
Oliver said we want to establish a sub-committee for the 40th anniversary of ham radio in space meeting to be held in late November or early December of 2023. Please email your nominations, including self-nominations, to the ARISS officers.
Frank thanked Oliver for leading today’s meeting. He said he is proud of our phenomenal team!
Next meeting: October 18, 2022 at 1100 UTC.
Respectfully submitted,
Martha Muir, ARISS-I Secretary
RSS Feed
