Tue, 31 May 2011 04:47:39 AM CDT

Space shuttle Endeavour’s crew is wrapping up final preparations for its planned landing at 2:35 a.m. EDT Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew is preparing to stow the Ku-Band antenna, used for high-data rate communications and television from space, and will go to sleep at 9:56 a.m.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. Successful ARISS Contact for Escola EBI/JI de Montenegro
3. ARRL Letter Covers ARISS Proposal Process
4. AMSAT – New ARISS Proposal
5. Amateur Radio Newsline on ARISS

1. Upcoming School Contacts
The ARISS team continues to work on scheduling school contacts as the STS-134 crew members depart the ISS.

2. Successful ARISS Contact for Escola EBI/JI de Montenegro

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to return to Earth for the final time on Wednesday, June 1, completing a 16-day mission to outfit the International Space Station. If Endeavour lands Wednesday, it will have spent 299 days in space and traveled more than 122.8 million miles during its 25 flights. It launched on its first mission on May 7, 1992.

HOUSTON – The astronauts on the space shuttle Endeavour woke up this evening to a song that was written specially for the crew who are flying the orbiter on its final mission.

A NASA contest sought original song entries to awaken the astronauts during Endeavour's STS-134 flight. The competition received 1,350 submissions, and NASA selected 10 songs as finalists before opening it up to six weeks of public voting. [The Astronaut's Playlist: Groovy Songs for Space Travelers]

"More than 1.5 million votes were cast to determine the first and second place songs," NASA officials said.

HOUSTON – NASA has a new spaceflight champion and his name is Mike Fincke.

Fincke, an astronaut flying on the shuttle Endeavour's final mission, broke NASA's all-time record for the most time spent in space by an American late Friday (May 27) when he passed the 377-day mark, and he is raising the bar higher with every additional minute he spends in orbit.

By the time Endeavour lands on June 1, Fincke will have spent 382 days in orbit on three space missions.

http://www.space.com/11817-nasa-astronaut-american-spaceflight-record-mi...

This pass Saturday Mike Fincke - KE5AIT was active on the International Space Station during the day.

At 1609 UTC he was active via NA1SS over the Caribbean, and had a QSO with Angel, WP3GW, while he was calling CQ.

There is a video posted on YouTube of the QSO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdzRWEzKH_M&feature=player_embedded

ARISS and the NASA Johnson Space Center Education Office's Teaching From Space staff have announced new processes that US-based educators will need to follow to propose a school contact with the International Space Station crew.

Thu, 26 May 2011 01:23:40 AM CDT

Space shuttle Endeavour's crew completed today's inspection of the shuttle's thermal protection system at 2:16 a.m. EDT. The crew began the inspection early. They used the 50-foot-long Orbiter Boom Sensor System to conduct a high fidelity, three-dimensional scan of areas of the shuttle that experience the highest heating during entry - the wing leading edges and nose cap. Managers and engineers in Mission Control will review the data to validate the heat shield's integrity and assure it has suffered no significant micrometeoroid and orbital debris damage.

(This information from http://www.uschess.org/content/blogcategory/301/629/ )

Space Shuttle Endeavour launched on Monday morning, May 16, at 8:56 AM EDT. The launch of Endeavour marks the second-to-last launch of the Space Shuttle program - and the start of the second Earth vs. Space Chess Match, sponsored by NASA in conjunction with the U.S. Chess Federation.

Move one for space was made just prior to the first launch attempt on April 19, and Earth's first move was chosen by the 1,200+ participants at the National High School Chess Championship in Nashville, TN, that weekend.

The European Space Agency, Arianespace and the European Commission announced today that the launch of the first two satellites of Europe's global navigation satellite system is planned to take place on 20 October.