Season's greetings will be offered by International Space Station Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Max Suraev in a special video message airing this week on NASA Television and the NASA Web site.

The greetings are part of the daily NASA Video File beginning at noon EST weekdays. For NASA TV streaming video, scheduling and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

The public also is invited to send personal holiday greetings to the station crew using the NASA Web site or Twitter. To send a personalized message to the crew via the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

NASA has purchased two reusable solid rocket motors from ATK Launch Systems Inc. of Brigham City, Utah, to provide a "launch on need" rescue capability for the final planned space shuttle mission, targeted for September 2010.

The reusable solid rocket motors are the propellant-loaded sections of the solid rocket boosters that provide thrust for the first two minutes of a shuttle flight. The $64.6 million modification brings the total value of the contract, which was awarded in October 1998, to $4.1 billion and covers work started in February to produce and transport the two motors.

Work will be performed at the contractor's plants in Brigham City and Clearfield, Utah, and facilities at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astronauts are not the only ones earning wings on the International Space Station. Butterflies emerged aboard the station recently, to the delight of science students across the country. That experiment and studies of bacteria that advance research about food poisoning and infections are the subjects of live NASA TV satellite interview opportunities from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. CST on Friday, Dec. 18.

International Space Station Program Scientist Julie Robinson will be available for interviews along with Dr. Nancy Moreno, a principal investigator of the Painted Lady butterfly education activities. Moreno is a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine who is conducting the butterfly research with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

On 3 February 2006, cosmonaut Valery Ivanovich Tokarev hand launched the Amateur Radio satellite SuitSat-1 from the International Space Station during an EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity = Spacewalk).

SuitSat-1 was a very special Amateur Radio satellite.
A discarded Russian ORLAN Space Suit (in Russian a "Skafander") was equipped with an Amateur Radio transmitter, which transmitted telemetry and greetings from youngsters to the youth of the world in several languages.

In 2010, an Amateur Radio satellite will once again be hand launched from the International Space Station. It will be called ARISSat-1.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contact
2. Astronaut Training Status - Simulated Contact Scheduled
3. Successful ARISS Contact with Utah School
4. ARISS-Brazil on Twitter

1. Upcoming School Contact
An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled with Scuola Primaria De Gasperi in Noicattaro, Bari, Italy on Saturday, December 12 at 09:11 UTC. Lesson plans have covered amateur radio communications and space missions. Newspapers, radio and television, both local and regional, will report on the event.

2. Astronaut Training Status - Simulated Contact Scheduled

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contact
2. De Winne Speaks with Dumbleyung Primary School through ARISS
3. Don Bosco Institut Experiences ARISS Contact
4. ARISS Contact held with Katholieke Centrumscholen Sint-Truiden Students
5. ARRL Covers Installation of Columbus Module Antennas
6. ARISS News on Amateur Radio Newsline
7. New Web Site for ARISS-Brazil

1. Upcoming School Contact
Midvalley Elementary School in Midvale, Utah has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Wednesday, December 2 at 16:13 UTC. The school is using NASA lesson plan resources and has integrated the ARISS activity into the school curriculum at many grade levels. The curriculum includes courses in electricity, radio waves, physics and math.

DQ11APOLLO is a special-event station of the Deutsche Amateuer-Radio-Club (DARC) celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon by NASA.

July 20, 2009 marked the 40th annnivesary of the first manned landing on the moon by the Apollo-11 mission. To celebrate this brilliant technical achievement of NASA, a group of space-flight enthusiast radio amateurs of the Deutsche Amateur-Radio-Club applied for the special-event callsign DQ11APOLLO. It was issued on July 15, 2009 and is valid 365 days. The station will be activated on the mission-dates of the past Apollo flights on all HF, VHF & UHF-bands using SSB, CW, FM and PSK.

Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts ended an 11-day journey of nearly 4.5 million miles with a 9:44 a.m. EST landing Friday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The mission, designated STS-129, included three spacewalks and the installation of two platforms to the International Space Station's truss, or backbone. The platforms hold large spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired. The shuttle crew delivered about 30,000 pounds of replacement parts for systems that provide power to the station, keep it from overheating, and maintain a proper orientation in space.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. ARISS Contact with Belgium's First Congress for Children
3. Bennett Venture Academy Contact Successful
4. ARISS Antennas Installed on Columbus Module
5. ISS Ham Debrief Held with Astronaut Michael Barratt
6. ARISS' Hutchison, Senior Australian of the Year Finalist
7. Astronaut Training Status

1. Upcoming School Contacts
Dumbleyung Primary School has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Thursday, November 26 at 11:51 UTC via telebridge station VK4KHZ in Australia. Students have discussed and explored all aspects of Earth and its position within the solar system, as well as the Earth's structure and how it impacts the way people live.

ARISS US Hardware Manager Lou McFadin, W5DID says that all the teamwork and effort to expand the ARISS amateur radio station aboard the ISS were successful this weekend when the new dual band 2m/70CM antenna was installed on the outside of ESA's Columbus module.

Lou congratulated the team, "This is an example of what can be achieved by volunteer hams working closely with a space agency. This antenna project was funded entirely by AMSAT-NA and volunteers who built the antennas for both an ESA experiment and for ARISS. I am very proud of all the teamwork and effort that has gone into this project."