NASA has set media accreditation deadlines for the next space shuttle mission to the International Space Station. Shuttle Discovery is targeted to launch Feb. 12 at 7:28 a.m. EST on the STS-119 mission to the station. The seven-member crew will deliver the final pair of power-generating solar arrays and the last segment of the space station's backbone.

All U.S. and international journalists must apply for credentials to attend the liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida or cover the mission from other NASA centers. To be accredited, reporters must work for legitimate, verifiable news-gathering organizations. Media representatives may need to submit requests for credentials at multiple NASA facilities.

As part of NASA's celebration of the 10th anniversary of the International Space Station, the agency is providing a special 2009 calendar to teachers and the public.

The calendar contains photographs taken from the space station. It highlights historic NASA milestones and fun facts about this international construction project of unprecedented complexity that began in 1998.

The calendar can be downloaded and printed by visiting:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

"We hope this calendar will inspire the next generation of explorers and provide interesting and challenging information for educators, students and anyone interested in space," said International Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "As we near the completion of space station assembly, we are doubling the crew size, increasing our knowledge and operational experience, and continuing our quest of exploration and discovery."

The International Space Station's Expedition 18 crew focused its attention on spacewalk preparations and maintenance activities Thursday.

To prepare for their upcoming spacewalk, Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov gathered tools, prepared spacesuits and reviewed procedures with Russian spacewalk specialists.

During the spacewalk, Fincke and Lonchakov will install EXPOSE-R outside the station's Zvezda Service Module. EXPOSE-R is a suite of nine European Space Agency experiments that will expose a variety of seeds and spores to the harsh environment of space for more than a year. The spacewalk is scheduled for Dec. 22.

All,

The ARISS team has had a number of queries on several topics. It is hoped that this e-mail will answer these for you.

1) 25th Anniversary of Ham in Space Special Event Certificate---Many have asked how to receive the special certificate and what qualifies you for the certificate.

Qualification: Those that have had 2 way communications with the ISS on Voice, Packet (APRS), or through the voice repeater. And those that have heard the ISS from space in any of the ARISS operations modes (Voice, SSTV, School Contact, Voice Repeater, Digital). Valid dates to qualify for certificate: November 30 to January 15.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center will provide an opportunity for reporters to see the International Space Station's next element at 10 a.m. EST, Thursday, Dec. 18. The S6 truss segment, with its set of large U.S. solar arrays, will be attached to the starboard, or right, side of the station during space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission. STS-119 is targeted to launch Feb. 12, 2009.

NASA and Boeing mission managers involved in processing the element for flight will be available for a question-and-answer session during the event. Media representatives planning to attend must arrive at Kennedy's news center by 9:30 a.m. for transportation to the Space Station Processing Facility. The processing facility is an operational area. All participants must be dressed in long pants, shirts with sleeves, and flat, closed-toe shoes.

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at 2 Circolo Didattico, San Giuseppe, Mola di Bari, Italy on 12 December. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1418 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and IZ7EVR. 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 Didactic Center "San Giuseppe" is located in Mola di Bari, a city in Southern Italy. The school center includes two primary schools and three kindergartens. There are more than 800 pupils and 70 teachers. The primary schools have multimedia facilities and scientific laboratories. The pupils play an active role in a numerous projects, they gain experience on music, dance, theatre, physical education and more.

I spent the last half of the month of July 2008 attending amateur radio satellite meetings. First came the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Face-to-Face Meetings in Moscow, Russia, and second was the annual AMSAT-UK Space Colloquium at the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK. This was my first-ever trip to Russia and the most recent of several trips to the AMSAT-UK Space Colloquium. I will attempt to relay my impressions and knowledge gained during these meetings in the following paragraphs.

ARISS Face-to-Face Meetings

Over the years, ARISS has held at least one face-to-face meeting in addition to the regularly scheduled telephone conferences and e-mail activity utilized to conduct the day-to-day business of ARISS. These meetings give the ARISS international delegates and others a chance to meet one another and conduct discussions, etc., that are difficult to do without the free exchange in a face-to-face setting. Typically, these meetings are held in conjunction with other amateur radio satellite meetings such as the annual AMSAT-NA Space Symposium and the AMSAT-UK Space Colloquium. Occasionally, the ARISS Face-to-Face Meeting is held independent of other meetings. The meeting in Russia was originally planned to take place near the time of the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputink I on October 4, 1957. Due to the planning and logistics involved in arranging such a meeting, it was nearly a year late.

As promised by ARISS, the 25th Anniversary Commemorative radio event started operations from the ISS amateur radio station this week. Early in the week several amateur stations around the world were able to copy the slow-scan television (SSTV) pictures transmitted from the ISS. On Friday, December 5 the ARISS crossband FM repeater was enabled with several stations reporting excellent signals. When the crossband repeater is operational its uplink is on 437.800 MHz FM with its downlink on 145.800 MHz FM. Remember to adjust for doppler shift when operating in this mode.

For the week of December 7-12 ARISS will run a test of 9600 baud packet operations on the simplex frequency 145.825 MHz.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. India College Experiences Successful Contact
3. Canadian Contact Successful
4. ARRL Article on ARISS - IEW Events
5. ARRL Covers ARISS Special Event

1. Upcoming School Contacts
An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled with Ellis School in Belleville, Illinois on Monday, December 8 at 16:56 UTC. Space studies have been integrated into the school curriculum. Students have created solar system models, written reports and given presentations to their classes. They have designed rockets and given talks to the class about where the rockets will go and what they will do in space. They have planned space colonies and determined how the astronauts will travel, how they will obtain food and where they will live. They have also sampled space food. Students have learned about Expedition 18, the Space Shuttle, the international partners and the ISS and amateur radio. The class is currently growing seeds that were flown in space.

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Istituto Comprensivo "Marco Polo" , Grado, Italy on 10 December. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1011 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and IV3YZB. 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.

Grado is a little town, located on the northernmost coast of the Adriatic Sea, 80km east of Venice, between the rivers Isonzo and Tagliamento. It has a remarkable history: it was under the Roman Empire, it defended the inhabitants against Attila in 452 AD, it became Austrian after the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797 and again Italian after the 1st World War. Today, Grado has 8600 inhabitants and the economy is based on tourism and fishing industry. The "Marco Polo" is a secondary school but it includes also a primary school. 550 students attend the school.