US businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, will travel to the ISS on September 18 as part of the Russian Soyuz "taxi mission," and hopes to try ham QSOs from space. Ansari had decided originally, not to do ham contacts after realizing her heavy schedule didn't allow her to study for her ham exam. She was scheduled to fly in 2007, but when Daisuke Enomoto was grounded due to medical issues, her ETA was moved up. Ansari was trained on the ISS radios by the Russian ARISS Team quite a few months ago. Now, she has decided to go for a potential QSO with students at George Washington University, her alma mater, on September 22 by taking advantage of a U.S.astronaut as her Control Operator.

As indicated by this article on SAREX ( http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/10day/msg00161.html ) the "materials exposure experiment" also known as PCSAT-2 was removed during the third EVA of STS-115. The last reported signal posted to Findu.com ( http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/pcsat2.cgi?absolute=1 ) was on Sept 14, 2006 at 2010 and 25 seconds UTC. The experiment will be returned to Earth by Atlantis for continued study.

Additional information on PCSAT2 is available at http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/pcsat2.html

Educator Astronaut Barbara Morgan has been scheduled for a training session with Kenneth Ransom at JSC on Wednesday, September 13. Topics covered will include school contacts and radio operations.
http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program now says US businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, who will travel to the International Space Station September 18 as part of the Russian Soyuz TMA-9 "taxi mission," will attempt some Amateur Radio contacts while in space. Earlier indications from Ansari, 39, were that she had decided not to get a license and would not do any ham radio contacts.
http://www.arrl.org/

NASA has announced that International Space Station Expedition 6 Commander Ken Bowersox, KD5JBP, will be departing the space agency. Bowersox will leave his position as director of flight crew operations this month. Pending his retirement from the US Navy, where he holds the rank of captain, he'll move into a support position in the office of Johnson Space Center Director Michael Coats. An astronaut since 1987, Bowersox, who will turn 50 in November, moved into NASA management in February 2004 following four shuttle flights and his six-month ISS mission. Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, KB5TZZ -- a veteran of four spaceflights -- will succeed Bowersox as director of flight crew operations, which oversees the Astronaut Office and Aircraft Operations. She's served as deputy director since 2003.

The arrival of the shuttle Atlantis crew at the International Space Station today has raised the number of radio amateurs now aboard the space station to five. Greeting the six Atlantis astronauts as they entered the ISS at 1230 UTC were Expedition 13 crew members Commander and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, RV3BS, US astronaut Jeff Williams, KC5TVQ, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, DF4TR. The shuttle linked up with the ISS a couple of hours earlier, following its oft-scrubbed launch from Kennedy Space Center on September 9. Complete story at http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/09/11/101/?nc=1

Fellow ISS Fan Club members,

Got to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis flying behind the ISS this evening.

At 7:38 pm local time (05:38z Sept 11), both the ISS and Atlantis were visible in the Southwestern sky at 17 degree elevation., travelling towards the South to an elevation of 10 degrees. The total duration was about 2 minutes -- of which I got to see the last 30 seconds because I was driving to the viewing location and made it just in time.

At that time, Altantis appeared to be trailing the space station by about distance between the thumb and forefinger when held out at arms length. I suspect the distance between the two satellites were perhaps within 100 miles and closing.

ISS astronaut Jeff Williams, KD5TVQ, got to answer questions about life in space from his niece and several of her classmates August 28 during a Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with Northeast Middle School in Clarksville, Tennessee. Williams told his niece, who asked the first question, that he became an astronaut because it involves excitement and discovery.
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/09/08/100/?nc=1

Succesful launch of STS-115 at 15:14 hours UTC. Space craft now in orbit and tracking via nasa java tracking system. God speed Atlantis.

Sept. 8, 10:54 a.m. EDT
The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis has been scrubbed until Saturday due to a problem with one of the vehicle's fuel system sensors. The new launch time is targeted for 11:14 a.m. EDT.