CONNECTED STATIONS 1/07/05

From SAREX Mailing List:

Hello All,
For those interested, ARISS is now recording most of the School / ISS telebridge contacts and making them available on EchoLink.
These recordings can be accessed at any time simply be logging onto the AMSAT conference room with EchoLink and typing .list to see what's
available, then typing .play # ,the # represents the number of the recording you require. Don't forget to put a "dot" in front of the command.

A docked Progress cargo craft fired its engines Wednesday for 5 minutes,boosting the International Space Station's altitude. The reboost maneuver was necessary to optimize Space Shuttle Discovery's rendezvous and docking opportunities at the Station after it launches in mid-July.

RELEASE: 05-171
NASA has cleared the Space Shuttle to Return to Flight. After a two-day Flight Readiness Review meeting at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, senior managers approved a July 13 launch date for Discovery.

Sergey Samburov sent to Kenneth Ransom a CD containing Kenwood operations, SSTV instructions, and other software programs. The U.S. team will review the contents and provide updates for the software, as needed. Once finalized, the CD will be sent to the ISS on a future Progress flight.
Mark Steiner contacted QRZ and received an update to the callsign database. The new database will be shipped to Houston along with the SuitSat Educational Project CDs, and will be included in the Progress 19P manifest.

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

Astronaut John Phillips spoke to members of Congress about what living on the ISS means in terms of future exploration plans. On June 15, the ARRL covered this story in the article, "Ham-Astronaut testifies before Congress from space.� See: http://www.arrl.org/

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

Astronaut John Grunsfeld is tentatively scheduled to attend an ARISS operations overview session on Friday, July 8. Grunsfeld is the backup for Expedition 13.

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