SB SAREX @ AMSAT $STS-78.027
STS-78 SAREX Bulletin #27

Silver Spring, Maryland USA
July 5, 1996 @ 16:00 UTC

As the Life and Microgravity Sciences mission draws to a close over
this weekend, SAREX on STS-78 will be remembered by many amateur radio
experimenters and students for years to come.

Education scored outstanding achievements on three continents.  The
scheduled SAREX contacts were 100% successful with the eleven school
groups across Australia, France, Canada and the USA.  The students'
interest in space, math, science and technology were sparked through
their contact preparation, as well as by the answers to their combined
total of 116 questions posed to six Columbia crew members.  Amateur
radio and the schools enjoyed substantial news media exposure with
multiple television crews and several newspapers visiting nearly
every contact site.

Hundreds of random voice contacts were established with hams worldwide,
with the number still climbing.  Signal strength and gravity-gradient
propagation observations are being shared freely among experimenters
both on-the-air and through the Internet mail list sarex@amsat.org.
New list members are added frequently by e-mailing their request to
Paul Williamson at listserv@amsat.org.

Crew members are heard using their personal call signs and often
honor their Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club by using W5RRR.
At times, the simple phrase "Space Shuttle Columbia" has given
away the voice from space.

The packet radio robot beacons messages of greetings to the world, as
updated occasionally by various members of the crew.  The normally
tireless W5RRR-1 has not been active during crew sleep periods during
this mission, yet the packet QSO count was above 1300 in number this
morning and climbing.

The SAREX equipment will be stowed by about 24 hours before landing.
However, many in North America will enjoy early morning sighting
opportunities depending on one's local lighting conditions.

Landing is scheduled for Sunday, July 7, 1996 at about 12:30 UTC.

Here is the latest Keplerian element set from Gil Carman, WA5NOM, of
the NASA/Johnson Space Center:

STS-78
1 23931U 96036A   96187.69158781  .00088752  00000-0  12713-3 0  9197
2 23931  39.0136 268.7820 0005581  26.2942 333.8320 16.04641595  2431

Satellite: STS-78
Catalog number: 23931
Epoch time:      96187.69158781   =     yrday.fracday
Element set:     919
Inclination:       39.0136 deg
RA of node:       268.7820 deg
Eccentricity:     .0005581
Arg of perigee:    26.2942 deg
Mean anomaly:     333.8320 deg
Mean motion:   16.04641595 rev/day
Decay rate:    8.87520E-04 rev/day^2
Epoch rev:             243
Checksum:              337

According to Gil, this set will be good through today and until the
trim burn on Saturday morning.  That burn will be at approximately
1300 UTC, and will lower the altitude by about 5 n.mi., resulting in
the orbiter appearing slightly earlier than these elements predict.
A Detailed Test Objective (DTO) will raise the orbit by a mile or
less and is not expected to further alter one's predictions
significantly.

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

/EX