On Sunday, October 12, Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, is scheduled to begin his journey to the International Space Station (ISS) as he blasts off into space via a Russian Soyuz and dock with the ISS two days later; he is due to return to Earth on Thursday, October 23. Richard, he sixth private citizen to be accepted by the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA) for a short-term mission on the ISS, is the son of Owen Garriott, W5LFL. In 1983, Owen was the very first ham to make QSOs from space. Richard said he plans to build on his father's legacy by also making QSOs from the ISS: He plans to perform several school contacts and downlink SSTV images during his flight, as well as contact the general ham community in his free time and perform random scout contacts during Jamboree on the Air (JOTA).

The ARISS team has a lot of exciting activities planned for the next few weeks, including the flight of Soyuz 17S to space station with Richard Garriott, W5KWQ and Mike Fincke, KE5AIT on-board. The following represents some new information and capabilities that we are rolling out to the community to prepare for Richard's and Mike's flight. Please go to www.ariss.org, www.amsat.org, www.arrl.org and www.issfanclub.com for real-time information updates.

73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO
AMSAT-NA V.P. for Human Spaceflight Programs
ARISS International Chairman

The ARISS SSTV team announces the new ARISS SSTV Web Gallery and Blog.