Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Thomas Reiter continue to prepare for a spacewalk Wednesday, Nov. 22 out of the International Space Station's Russian Pirs Docking Compartment airlock.

Lopez-Alegria, who will make his sixth spacewalk, and Tyurin, with three previous spacewalks to his credit, climbed into Russian Orlan spacesuits Friday to test all systems and communications gear. This ended a week during which the spacewalkers also installed U.S. lights on their suit helmets, reviewed procedures for the extravehicular activity and performed leak checks on the Progress 22 craft currently docked to the Pirs airlock.

Houston - NASA officials will hold a briefing at 1 p.m. CST Thursday, Nov. 16, to discuss an upcoming spacewalk from the International Space Station. The six-hour spacewalk is planned for the night before Thanksgiving.

On Nov. 22, Expedition 14 Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin will retrieve equipment and photograph the station's Russian Zvezda Service Module's docking port. Tyurin also will hit a golf ball from a specially designed tee mounted on the Pirs airlock as part of a Russian commercial activity. Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter will remain inside the station tending to systems during the spacewalk.

The first live HDTV broadcast from space took place Wednesday. It featured Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter, serving as camera operator. The broadcast was carried by Discovery HD Theater and NHK and was also shown at Discovery Channel stores. Known as the Space Video Gateway, the system transmits high bandwidth digital television signals to the ground that are not only spectacular, but also valuable to scientists, engineers and managers.

Source: http://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/msg00105.html

The scheduled ARISS QSO between students assembled at Landesmuseum fuer Technik und Arbeit (Mannheim Museum), Mannheim, Germany and ESA Astronaut Thomas Reiter has been assigned a new contact time of 15:57 UTC. The contact day remains unchanged at Monday, November 20, 2006. As a result of this hourly time change this telebridge event will now be supported by ground station VK5ZAI located in Kingston SE, Australia.

Live audio will be available on IRLP and EchoLink through the ARISS Audio Distribution Project

IRLP users can connect to the main channel of "Discovery" Reflector 9010. The audio feed will begin approximately 10 minutes before the scheduled contact time. Streaming audio will also be available through www.discoveryreflector.ca:8000/listen.pls (expect a 2 to 3 minute delay on this stream).

A Space Flight Training Division Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) was held at Johnson Space Center on November 6-10. The ARISS-Russian team from Energia, representatives from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC), and ARISS-U.S. members attended. As a result of the meeting, the ARISS U.S. team may be tasked to perform more of the amateur radio training to reduce the amount of time that U.S. crews spend in Russia.

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

In spring 2007, The History Channel plans to run a 13-segment series, "The Secret Life of Machines." One segment will cover Amateur Radio, part of which will focus on ham radio in space. ARISS delegate Rosalie White described the roles of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) and the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) to the History Channel reporter, and provided information on SuitSat-1 and SuitSat-2 and explained how the ARISS team compiles components, and designs, tests and launches its systems. Follow-up material, which covered SuitSat-1 and an ARISS school whose 5th graders built 5 types of crystal radios and compared their qualities, was sent to him.

Plans to launch a second "SuitSat" spacesuit-turned-satellite were the subject of discussions and presentations at the recent AMSAT Space Symposium and Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) International Delegates' meeting near San Francisco. Despite a weaker-than-anticipated 2-meter signal, SuitSat-1 -- a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit fitted with an Amateur Radio transmitter -- sparked the imagination of students and the general public and turned into a public relations bonanza for Amateur Radio. ARISS now hopes to capitalize on the concept by building an even better SuitSat that will include ham radio transponders.

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams is glad to be back on Earth with his family, friends and some long-sought peace and quiet after six months aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"Six months, as you know, is a long time to be on orbit and away from family and friends," Williams said in an interview. "It's very good to be back on Earth."

Expedition 13 Journals: Chapter One
As an ISS flight engineer, Williams worked, lived, ate and slept high in Earth orbit before returning to constant pull of gravity on Sept. 28 with his Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. space tourist Anousheh Ansari. Expedition 13, which launched on March 29, saw NASA's second return to flight shuttle mission and first new space station construction work since late 2002.

Students from Centre Hastings Secondary School (www.hpedsb.on.ca/chss) located in Madoc, Ontario, Canada are scheduled to talk to Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, KE5GTK, via NA1SS on Monday, November 20, 2006 at 16:35 UTC. This will be a direct contact via VE3UR.

Live audio will be available on IRLP and EchoLink as part of the ARISS Audio Distribution Project.

IRLP users can connect to the main channel of "Discovery" Reflector 9010. Because this will be an experimental feed the audio feed is expected to begin shortly before the contact time depending upon content. Streaming audio will also be available through www.discoveryreflector.ca:8000/listen.pls (expect a 2 to 3 minute delay on this stream).

Repair of an oxygen generator, robotic arm operations and cargo unpacking were the top priorities aboard the International Space Station this week.

On Monday, Expedition 14 Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin installed new valves and cables to repair the Elektron oxygen-generation unit which shut down in mid-September. Tyurin re-activated it after installing the new parts, and the Elektron is supplying oxygen for the cabin atmosphere.

Source: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/msg00069.html