A NASA Explorer School (NES) Satellite Communication Class will be held at Goddard Space Flight Center this week. Two one hour sessions have been scheduled for the teachers with ARISS team members. An introduction to Amateur Radio and ARISS will be given during the first hour, and orbital elements, prediction programs, and how to track the ISS and shuttle will be addressed during the second session. There is the possibility of an ARISS contact being scheduled for the teachers during the week (depending on when the shuttle launches) which will give them an idea of how to incorporate the ARISS program in their own curricula.

http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm

AMSAT-Italia is currently developing the "Ionosfera" project which aims at supporting the DX Community in predicting the ionosphere propagation conditions.The project is developed in the framework of European Space Agency's (ESA) programme on "Space Weather" and can be visited at: http://esaspaceweather.net/sda/ionosfera/index2.htm

Please have a look, make suggestions and forward the link to other potentially interested people

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

PCSAT2 is attached to the ISS and so its operations must be in cooperation with the ARISS communications suite to minimize any mutual interference and to coordinate activities. Here are the capabilities of the PCSAT2 payload:

ARISS member Dave Taylor has been working on an SSTV manual for the ISS Ham system. He has submitted the final version to Kenneth Ransom at JSC to be uplinked to the ISS.

http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm

On Friday, July 8, Kenneth Ransom gave astronaut John Grunsfeld, KC5ZTF, an overview of the ARISS radio system and operations. Grunsfeld is a backup for the Expedition 13 crew.

http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm