(Thanks to Thomas Kieselbach, DL2MDE for these infoes)

The SAFEX II Station Call RR0DL is now working on board of the Russian Space Station MIR.
With the following words Shannon Lucid gave a first message on the frequency 437.925 MHz from the MIR space station on the weekend July 13./14., 1996:

"Thanks for the Radio SAFEX, we just turned it on and the best wishes from the crew of MIR 21. Hope this is of use to you. Many thanks for the experiment."

Herewith we have reached the first result of our work on the SAFEX project. Since the construction and the installation on the space station MIR is finished successfully, we now verify the different modes of the equipment.
The first contact in the QSO-mode was between W5RRR and the MIR station and the first contact between ground stations via the SAFEX repeater were IV3WLQ, LY3BH and DF0VR.

Two very important things:

For working via the repeater you must use CTCSS tones (141.3 Hz).

The Doppler-shift is plus/minus 10 KHz, that means in the begin and the end of all passes you have a difference of 20 KHz referred to the normal frequency. The international amateur radio community always tries to use also the manned space flight missions. Thus far, this has occurred on several American and Russian space missions. Years ago the Russians installed an amateur radio station at the MIR space station. This radio station operates in the 145 MHz band in voice and packet modes. After the Russian-German space operation MIR-92 it was proposed to expand the existing equipment in order to accommodate current communication technologies.

An agreement was made between NPO Energia, Russian radio amateurs, Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) and the Ham Radio Group at the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) in February 1994 to install a new amateur system to the space station MIR. This system is mounted into the "Priroda" module and is comprised of various components which operate on different radio amateur bands.
On the German side support was given by the Deutsche Agentur fuer Raumfahrtangelegenheiten (DARA). The costs are shared, whereby the German side covers the costs for the development and fabrication (DARA, DARC) and the Russians for the installation at the "Priroda" module and its operation.

The system is comprised of two main parts with auxiliary equipment:

1. Radio equipment in the 430 MHz amateur band (Duplex Shift 2.2 MHz).

2. Radio equipment in the L/S band (Uplink 1265 MHz/Downlink 2410 MHz).

The first covers primarily the desire for HAM communication and the second for experiments in future techniques.

History

In the past there has been participation of radio amateurs during several German space missions:

1985: DP0SL at the first German Spacelab-Mission;
1992: DP1MIR at the Russian-German Mission MIR-92;
1993: DP0SL at the second German Spacelab-Mission;
1994: DP3MIR at the Russian-ESA Misson EUROMIR 94;
1995: DP0MIR at the Russian-ESA Mission EUROMIR 95.

In 1993 first discussions and negotiations with the Russian partners (NPO Energia) and the Russian radio amateurs took place, which led to an agreement in March 1994 concerning a new HAM-radio-station on MIR. In May 1994 DARA promised to participate on financing the project. In August 1994 an agreement between the partners was signed for the start of RR0DL in late summer 1995 (postponed to spring 1996).


Project Requirements

The experience of earlier missions showed that astronauts and cosmonauts are very busy and overloaded with work. Therefore the new equipment must offer technical arrangements which permit amateur radio activities without active crew operation. In amateur radio one is concerned with many technical areas. The new equipment satisfies the desire for both communication and experiments.

The conception on the Russian side had to be fulfilled in detail, but they were very generous. That can be seen from a payload of 30 kilogram, three external antennas and an electrical power of 50 Watts/24 hours with peaks up to 300 Watts for a maximum of 2 hours/day. The technical demands for all parts of the equipment were very high. What does not
correspond is not going to be launched. In addition there was a tight time table for the realization of the project.


Concept

The equipment for the RRODL consists of two main parts with several additional devices.

Radio equipment in the 430 MHz band: Duplex with a 2.2 MHz frequency shift, modified as communication system for the MIR crew.

Radio equipment in the L/S-band: Uplink 23 cm, downlink 12 cm, designed as an experimental system, transponder operation, amateur television (ATV), and future experiments.

There exists already a 2 meter amateur radio station on the MIR space station. It is, however, installed into another module of the station. It is planned to install a 144 MHz-radio, which will be switched by a duplexes, in order to make operation possible from RR0DL on 2 m or crossband.


430-MHz-Equipment

The 430 MHz installation corresponds to a large extend to FM repeater technology. At first it simplified the matter for us that a standard product (ICOM 4020) could be modified. To this device several modifications and additions had to be undertaken. Besides to the additional features there is installed:

- Diplex filter and switches for 2 meters
- Filter for 70 cm duplex-mode
- Packet Radio TNC for duplex-digipeater
- Digital voice recorder
- Digital voice identification
- changeover of the supply voltage to 28 Volts
- Frequency and operating control system / mode control

The device in its original housing (425mm width x 149mm height x 368mm depth) is built for rack mounting. The handling is done by the MIR crew, it is also possible to use remote control from the ground station (Moscow, R3K and Oberpfaffenhofen, DF0VR).


L/S-Band device

This equipment is planned for experiments on amateur radio. The basic module is working as a transponder with 10 MHz bandwidth, uplink 1265 MHz, downlink 2410 MHz. It is possible to plug different experimental modules into the basic module. The ATV group at the University of Bremen will develop and built the ATV equipment and also the L/S-band basic part.

Experimental modules operate at the intermediate frequency 70 MHz, the other parameters will be published later. So the possibility for the HAM community is given, that in the future other communication experiments at the MIR station can be realized.

Mode and Frequencies

Mode-1: Relay Operation
The possibility for FM voice communications covering Europe is achieved. It depends on the users whether these communications can be realized. Radio discipline has first priority. For a special ground station working in undisturbed broadcast mode is possible by using special techniques.

Mode-2: Data Operation (Packet Radio)
Previous experience was gathered using packet radio on the MIR space station. The new device operates at 9600 Bd and echoes every data packet. With this concept, a higher data rate than with the former equipment can be achieved on one hand by the data speed, on the other hand the collisions of packets will be reduced to a minimum. There is also a lap-top PC available at the station for mailbox operation.

Mode-3: QSO-Operation of the MIR Crew
The cosmonauts can perform regular QSOs and can also carry out special functions with this device. Certainly in QSO operation it is very valuable that at the on-board frequency there are no other signals to be heart (communications discipline!).

In addition, the cosmonauts have three other possibilities to use RR0DL:

In special cases a CTCSS tone can be switched to the transmission of RR0DL and DTMF tones can be used. The crew applies this in case they want to contact specific prepared stations. This is planned for emergency use, contacts with control centers and their families. Ground stations can be equipped accordingly, so that the cosmonaut can dial into a telephone system with DTMF tones in order to reach his XYL or another OM. If this is noticed other hams should not disturb!

Furthermore a digital voice recorder will be built into RR0DL. With that device the cosmonauts have the possibility to transmit a message worldwide. They record a text on the digital voice recorder and this text will be transmitted in regular intervals (duration up to 2 min, then 2 min break). The German DLR Ham Radio Group added an identical device to the already existing 2-m-equipment. The last messages transmitted from MIR were New Year Wishes (1994), Greetings to the HAM Fair Friedrichshafen (1994), EUROMIR 95 Mission and MIR 97 Mission.

Picture transmission, this part is new in the concept for RR0DL. A system was developed for transmitting pictures in digital form. The crew on-board of MIR can take pictures with a still-video-camera and these can be stored in a lap-top PC. The basis for the picture transmitting protocol is the AX.25 packet protocol. The picture pixels are transmitted in pseudo-random kind. With this system recognition of pictures after only 30 % transmission is possible. Missing pixels will be mathematically added at the end of transmission. Transmission time for one picture is 3 minutes. Amateurs can receive the picture with a normal packet TNC with 9K6 modem and a special software version from JVFAX (not available yet).

Ground Station for 430 MHz

A normal FM-transceiver with an omni-directional antenna can be used as ground station.
Improved and easier is the operation, if

1. Directional antennas
2. Computer control for antennas and transceiver
3. CTCSS device
4. Scanner operation for the SAFEX frequencies
5. Narrow frequency intervals are available.

It has to be considered that the Doppler shift at 430 MHz can be up to 10 KHz.