HOUSTON -- The International Space Station crew, paving the way for NASA's return to the moon, will honor the first humans to journey there 40 years ago with a special message.

Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineers Sandy Magnus and Yury Lonchakov will pay homage to that bold December 1968 voyage in a message that will air on NASA Television as part of the daily Video File, beginning at 11 a.m. CST, Friday, Dec. 19. The video also will be broadcast in high definition on the NASA TV HD channel at 10 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, and Tuesday, Dec. 23.

Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders roared into space on the first flight of the massive Saturn V rocket on Dec. 21, 1968. They became the first humans to circumnavigate the moon on Dec. 24, 1968, and returned safely to Earth three days later. Their mission demonstrated the ability of the Saturn V and the Apollo command and service modules to cross the 238,000-mile gulf between Earth and the moon, and set the stage for the first human lunar landing six months later.

Systems aboard the International Space Station performed well Tuesday as spacewalk preparations kicked into high gear for the Expedition 18 crew.

Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov checked out the cooling loops on their Russian Orlan spacesuits, activated the suits for initial systems checks, and configured support systems in the Pirs docking compartment.

The spacewalkers will exit the Pirs airlock next Monday around 7:15 p.m. EST for a six-hour excursion to install and retrieve science experiments from the station's exterior. They also will install a probe to measure electromagnetic potential around the Russian segment of the station that is suspected by Russian specialists to have contributed to the failure of Soyuz module bolts. Improper firing of these bolts resulted in steeper than expected re-entries for the Soyuz spacecrafts carrying the Expedition 15 and 16 crews back to Earth.

Alexandria, VA - Join Challenger Center for Space Science Education's live interactive webcast on Wednesday, December 17th at 10:30am ET with Richard Garriott, the 1st second-generation astronaut and sixth private explorer to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), and Challenger Center's Founding Chairman Dr. June Scobee Rodgers. Mr. Garriott and Dr. Rodgers will speak live from the Challenger Learning Center in Leicester, England talking to students and the winners of the Garriott UK space science challenge. The live interactive webcast is free and open to the public. It will be broadcast live at www.challenger.org.

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Scuola Elementare Faleriense "Gianni Rodari", Porto S. Elpidio, Italy on 18 December. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1210 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations OR4ISS and I6KZR. The contact should be audible over most of Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

The school "Gianni Rodari" is located in Porto Sant'Elpidio, a small town in Southern Italy. It is situated on the shore of the Adriatic Sea, 50 km away from Ancona and 30 km from the beautiful city of San Benedetto del Tronto. "Gianni Rodari" is a big primary school including a kindergarten. The school offers practical courses and projects such as the radio contact with the International Space Station.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. Ellis School Contact Successful
3. Texan Schoolchildren Speak with Astronaut
4. Italian School Contact Successful
5. Successful ARISS Contact with Bari Students
6. Boy Scouts ARISS Contact - Video Posted
7. NASA HQ Cites Stories on ARISS Contacts
8. ARISS 25th Anniversary Special Event Update
9. Canadian Contact Video Available

1. Upcoming School Contacts
King George Elementary School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Monday, December 15 at 16:51 UTC. Following the school's science curriculum, students studied space, space exploration, satellites and technology. They learned about the Canadian Space Agency, Canadian astronauts and the CanadArm. Students created posters and wrote letters to invite scientists, politicians and the press to the event. They also created PowerPoint presentations about the ISS.

Help Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineers Sandra Magnus and Yury Lonchakov celebrate the holiday season 220 miles above Earth by sending your greetings into space. http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/postcard/

As I mentioned on November 29, the ARISS team is currently celebrating 25 years of amateur radio operations from space. This e-mail describes some of the planned set of special event opportunities for the remainder of the month of December and the beginning of January.

To date, the ISS crew has configured the radio to support cross-band repeater operations, they have supported some SSTV downlinks and we have had the opporunity to participate in a special test of 9600 baud packet radio operations on the simplex frequency of 145.825 MHz.

This week through December 19, we expect the ISS Ham radio system to be on the 145.825 MHz frequency supporting 1200 baud packet. If PCSAT is configured during the week, double hop APRS is possible.

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at King George Elementary School, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada on 15 December. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1651 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and VE5ISS. The contact should be audible over most of N. America. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

The School is over 100 years old having been fully renovated in the late 90s to accommodate the installation of modern educational tools including computer labs etc.. The School houses both elementary and secondary students and is located n the heart of Moose Jaw at 1150 5th Avenue.

Back in the days MIR cosmonauts used to read PMS messages and eventually reply using a simple 1200bd tnc with the PMS built in. Packet radio was a very useful asset up there that Cosmonauts used also for their private needs. Sometimes it was even used off band for non-amateur operations.
Nowdays, after more than a decade, times have changed but the ISS is still using the very same setup that is overwhelmed by the increasing number of ground stations. The result is that gradually the astronauts have lost their interest in the system, which is essentially dying.
ARISS seems to have no ideas for any upgrade and has no plans to prevent the decline that Packet Radio on ISS is facing.

PCSAT Recovery Status:

Still no joy on recovery.
Still too many unattended stations overloading the bird while we are trying to command it.

I get command on the first ascending pass each day (PCSAT over atlantic, out of view of most USA). But next passes are impossible. Today, I plotted packet-attempts-by-PCSAT (noise bursts by ear) and noticed an astonishing 3 times heavier load over the USA compared to over the atlantic. Of these dozens of packet attempts, only 2 decoded.

But now that I can tell by ear the huge difference in attempted packets by PCSAT when it is over the USA, I can see why we are having problems. And the sun angle gets worse every day for a chance at recovery.