ISS Amateur Radio Status: November 12, 2002

Shuttle and Leonid Meteor Shower Double feature:
New ISS crew:

By Miles Mann WF1F,
MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

Shuttle and Leonid Meteor Shower Double feature:
This year the Leonid Meteor Shower will peak the same night of a planned
Space Shuttle launch (STS-113).  Its almost like a double feature or
triple if you want to try for RF Meteor Scatter.

Shuttle Status:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/status/stsstat/current.htm

The Shuttle STS-113 will be launched to the International Space Station
some time after 7pm EST November 18, 2002 (actually 00:00 UTC on
November 19th). There will be approximately three launch opportunities
on the 18th.  The launches are aligned with orbit pass of the ISS, as it
passes over Florida.  Since the launch will take place at Night, and the
Shuttle will be aimed North, many people along the east coast of the USA
will be able to see the glow of the shuttles engines and solid rocket
boosters. In theory, if you can find a dark spot away from city lights,
you will be able to see STS-113 as far north as Maine.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/

Then the next day, the shuttle will be visible in the early morning
hours as it chases the ISS for a docking a few days later (North
America). If you do not have a tracking program, please check the NASA
web pages for tracking and Visibility data.  The NASA pages have a
visibility chart for hundreds of cities around the world. There have
been several good reports of very bright reflections from ISS.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/index.html

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/SightingData/sighting_index.html

Leonids Meteor Shower:
The very same night of the shuttle launch will also be the yearly
Leonids Meteor Shower.
Each year around the 18, the Leonids meteor shower puts on a show.  The
show last year was great.  If you are a good amateur photographer, it
may be possible to get some good shots of ISS streaking across the sky,
at the same time a few Leonids streaks may also appear.  

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/meteors/article_719_1.asp

Meteor Scatter
http://www.veron.nl/amrad/mslinks.htm

New ISS crew:
This shuttle will bring a new replacement crew to ISS this week.  The
departing crew is crew #5 and the arriving crew will be crew #6.  It
will be sad to see Valery Korzun leave ISS.  It has been a lot of fun to
have him in Space.  He has been a very active Ammeter Radio operator and
has brought joy to many Amateur Radio stations around with world with
his frequent random voice orbits.  Valery has also done a great job
keeping the ISS Packet Station running.
The new ISS crew will contain at least one experienced Amateur Radio
operator.  Nikolai Budarin is an experienced ham from his Mir missions
in 1998.  Nikolai helped install he MAREX modem upgrade project on Mir. 
The old tnc was replaced by a new Kantronics KPC-9612 TNC which was
connected to a Kenwood TM-733 on Mir in 1998.

ISS Expedition 5 crew:
Peggy Whitson KC5ZTD
Sergei Treschev RZ3FU
Valeri Korzun RZ3FK

ISS Expedition 6 crew:
Kenneth Bowersox KD5JBP
Nikolai Budarin RV3FB
Donald Pettit KD5MDT
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp6/index.html


Happy landings ISS Expedition 5 crew:

www.marex-na.org