When the US space shuttle Discovery launches on its long-awaited "Return to Flight," its crew of seven will include six Amateur Radio licensees. Eileen Collins, KD5EDS, will serve as commander of the STS-114 shuttle mission.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/07/12/3/?nc=1

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

The seven crew, including Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, were already aboard the orbiter when NASA managers postponed the flight just two hours and 20 minutes before scheduled liftoff.

From Amsat Sarex reflector:
NASA has scrubbed the launch (July 13) of Discovery because of a problemwith a fuel tank sensor designed to protect the Shuttle's engines byshutting them down if fuel runs low.
Kenneth - N5VHO

Just FYI - here's a low technology method that has worked the last few days to connect to the ISS for PMS and digipeating. I have an ICOM 229H connected to an old KPC-3 with a magnet mount antenna placed on a metal roof angled north. I use the windows terminal emulator HyperTerminal for software. I wasn't expecting this to work but it does the job very well.

Rich Lovin, N7VIY

The STS-114 crewmembers will deliver supplies to the International Space Station, but the major focus of their mission will be testing and evaluating new Space Shuttle flight safety, which includes new inspection and repair techniques.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/