The first of three spacewalks in nine days by Commander Michael
Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Sunita Williams wrapped up Wednesday
at 6:09 p.m. EST. During the 7-hour 55-minute excursion, the
spacewalkers reconfigured one of two cooling loops for the Destiny
module, rearranged electrical connections and secured the starboard
radiator of the P6 truss after retraction.

Having a real, live astronaut on hand for the occasion helped to make an Amateur Radio contact with the International Space Station's NA1SS even more special for 11 fourth and fifth graders at Romeo Elementary School in Dunnellon, Florida. When the contact with Mission Specialist Suni Williams, KD5PLM, was done, NASA Educator Astronaut Joe Acaba, KE5DAR, joined the students in their enthusiasm. Acaba, who once taught at Dunnellon Middle School, made several informational presentations to the entire school before and after the January 17 event, says Larry Phelps, K4OZS, of the Silver Spring Radio Club (SSRC), which handled Earth station duties.

With the recent news that the tracked debris count from F1C has risen to over 300 pieces .... and unofficial
estimates that there may be tens of thousands of bits out there , I'm wondering what level of threat this poses to the forthcoming EVAs ?

At least one piece of debris has already come within a few kilometres of the station. Does anyone know if there are any contingency
measures in place to minimise the risk to the crew ?

John

On Thursday, December 14, astronaut Tim Kopra and future space participant Charles Simonyi took and passed their amateur radio license exams.

Callsigns have since been issued. Charles Simonyi received the callsign KE7KDP and Timothy Kopra was issued the callsign KE5LUT.

Charles Simonyi KE7KDP an architect of Microsoft's Word and Excel programs, paid Russia more than $20 million for a round-trip ride to the station and a stay aboard the orbiting lab during April.

Eleven electrical engineering students at The College of New Jersey had a hand in designing some of the software defined radio (SDR) hardware that will fly aboard SuitSat-2. The college seniors signed up last fall for "Software Defined Radio," taught by adjunct professors Bob McGwier, N4HY, and Frank Brickle, AB2KT -- both members of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) SuitSat-2 team. [img]http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/11/09/101/SuitSat-1-in-Space-1-sm.jpg[/img]

Hello all,
I have not received any packet fro some time now, the station will be passing my location ( Bunbury/Western Australia ) at 13:45 z , I'll have my eyes and ears open, hopfully I'll see it at least.

John