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Amateur Radio has been carried aboard orbiting US space shuttles for nearly 15 years now. It all began in the fall of 1983 with shuttle mission STS-9. The following text from the Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club's Web page (http://www.ghg.net/mbordel/jscarc/shuttle/) tells the story of the first space shuttle flight to carry Amateur Radio:

"On November 28, 1983, STS-9 was launched carrying Mission Specialist Owen Garriott, Amateur Radio call sign W5LFL, and his ham radio into orbit. For 10 days the Space Shuttle Columbia streaked through the skies, and for the last 7 of those days, hams around the world were sent emotionally into orbit when they heard Dr. Garriott's voice break their squelches calling earthbound stations. But it was just the beginning. Amateur Radio had moved into its newest frontier, and it was there to stay."

In addition to the possibility that earthbound hams could make random contacts with the ham-astronauts aboard orbiting space shuttles, beginning with STS-35 in 1990, Amateur Radio took on a new role: The dawn of the Space Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment (SAREX). This new secondary payload called SAREX brought the opportunity of scheduled radio contacts between the orbiting ham-astronauts and schools, putting astronauts and the space program in direct contact with school children around the world!

Past SAREX missions include:

Mission	Shuttle	Duration	Primary mission / Notes
STS-35	Columbia	Dec 2 - 10, 1990	UV Astronomy Spacelab ASTRO / The 1st SAREX
STS-37	Atlantis	Apr 5 - 10, 1991	Gamma Ray Observatory deployment mission
STS-45	Atlantis	Mar 24 - Apr 2, 1992	ATLAS-1 spacelab mission
STS-50	Columbia	Jun 25 - Jul 9, 1992	U.S. Microgravity Lab-1 (USML-1) mission
STS-47	Endeavour	Sep 12 - 20, 1992	First Japanese Spacelab mission
STS-56	Endeavour	Apr 8 - 17, 1993	ATLAS-2 spacelab mission
STS-55	Columbia	Apr 26 - May 6, 1993	Spacelab-D2 (German) spacelab mission
STS-57	Endeavour	Jun 21 - Jul 1, 1993	Spacehab-1 mission
STS-58	Columbia	Oct 18 - Nov 1, 1993	Spacelab for Life Sciences-2 (SLS-2) mission
STS-60	Discovery	Feb 3 - 11, 1994	1st Wake Shield Facility, Spacehab-2 mission
STS-59	Endeavour	Apr 9 - 20, 1994	Space Radar Lab-1 (SRL-1) mission
STS-65	Columbia	Jul 8 - 23, 1994	International Microgravity Lab-2 (IML-2)
STS-64	Discovery	Sep 9 - 20, 1994	Spartan-3 mission
STS-63	Discovery	Feb 3 - 11, 1995	Shuttle/Mir rendezvous; Spacehab-3 mission
STS-67	Endeavour	Mar 2 - 18, 1995	ASTRO-2 spacelab mission
STS-71	Atlantis	Jun 27 - Jul 7, 1995	First Shuttle/Mir docking mission
STS-70	Discovery	Jul 13 - 22, 1995	TDRS-G deployment mission
STS-74	Atlantis	Nov 12 - 20, 1995	Second Shuttle/Mir docking mission
STS-76	Atlantis	Mar 22 - 31, 1996	Third Shuttle/Mir docking; Early return: No SAREX
STS-78	Columbia	Jun 20 - Jul 7, 1996	Spacelab-LMS mission
STS-79	Atlantis	Sep 16 - 26, 1996	Fourth Shuttle/Mir docking mission
STS-83	Columbia	Apr 4 - 8, 1997	Returned early; No SAREX contacts (See STS-94)
STS-94	Columbia	Jul 1 - 17, 1997	Microgravity Sciences Laboratory mission; Made 17 school, and over 160 random, ham radio QSOs!
*STS-93	Columbia	August 1998	* Tentatively scheduled for launch: August 27, 1998.