SB SAREX @ AMSAT $STS-78.003
STS-78 SAREX Mission Update 3

Silver Spring, Maryland  USA
June 21, 1996 @ 16:00 UTC

Orbiting more than 170 miles over the surface of the Earth, Columbia's
astronauts successfully activated the Spacelab module housing more than
40 life science and microgravity experiments in the Shuttle's cargo bay.

All systems aboard Columbia and in the Spacelab are performing well
as the orbiter circles the Earth every 90 minutes. Columbia is in a
gravity gradient attitude, with its tail pointing to the ground and
its belly facing in the direction of travel so that the fewest possible
thruster firings are needed to prevent the sensitive microgravity
experiments from being disturbed.

Looking forward to SAREX operations starting tomorrow on voice and
packet radio are STS-78 Mission Specialist Charles Brady, N4BQW;
Mission Specialist Susan Helms, KC7NHZ; and Payload Specialist Bob
Thirsk, VA3CSA.  The other four shuttle crew members will help them
QSO with eleven schools in four countries as well as many random
contacts worldwide over the course of the mission: Commander Tom
Henricks, Pilot Kevin Kregel, Mission Specialist Rick Linnehan and
Payload Specialist Jean-Jacques Favier.

This Keplerian element set from Gil Carman, WA5NOM, should be good
through this Field Day weekend:

STS-78
1 23931U 96036A   96173.04912476  .00128600  00000-0  22834-3 0  9035
2 23931  39.0142   7.0951 0007255 276.8911  83.1241 16.00541057    80

Satellite: STS-78
Catalog number: 23931
Epoch time:      96173.04912476   =     yrday.fracday
Element set:     903
Inclination:       39.0142 deg
RA of node:         7.0951 deg
Eccentricity:     .0007255
Arg of perigee:   276.8911 deg
Mean anomaly:      83.1241 deg
Mean motion:   16.00541057 rev/day
Decay rate:    1.28600E-03 rev/day^2
Epoch rev:               8
Checksum:              278

So those without a computer satellite tracking program may participate
in the SAREX activities, space shuttle Columbia rise and set times
for selected cities around the world will be released every three days
over this network.

Submitted by (Pat Kilroy, WD8LAQ for) Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO for the
SAREX Working Group