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 Previous: New ARRL Section Pages Debut |  Next: Mississippi Youngsters Help Initiate Expedition 4 Crew to ARISS |
 The new ARISS antennas: The WA1 through WA3 antennas will support VHF and UHF with the flexible tapes. The WA4 antenna includes the 2.5-meter flexible tape for HF. The flat spiral L/S-band microwave antenna is within the Delrin radome cover. The systems include a diplexer and interconnecting RF cables as well as mounting hardware. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Jan 15, 2002--Amateur Radio on the International Space Station got a new antenna it can call its own January 14, thanks to a spacewalk by Expedition 4 crew members Yuri Onufrienko, RK3DUO, and Carl Walz, KC5TIE. ARISS Board Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, says another of the new ARISS ham antennas--there are four in all--could be installed January 25.
"It was beautiful to watch," Bauer told ARRL. "It went like clockwork, everything deploying just as it was supposed to. Yuri accidentally kicked the antenna, and it flexed just as it was supposed to."
While crewmate Dan Bursch, KD5PNU, operated the Canadarm2 robotic arm and monitored and videotaped the spacewalk--or EVA--from inside the ISS, Onufrienko and Walz first relocated a Russian Strela cargo crane used to maneuver equipment and spacewalkers. Then, they installed the flexible-tape VHF-UHF Amateur Radio antenna on a handrail at the end of the Zvezda Service Module--the crew's living quarters. The ARISS initial ham station gear--single-band hand-held transceivers for 2 meters and 70 cm--is installed in the Zarya Functional Cargo Block. NA1SS currently uses antennas that were installed to aid docking operations and EVAs. The new VHF-UHF antenna is the first one designed for and dedicated specifically to support ARISS operations.
Bauer said no decision has been made yet on which of the remaining three ARISS antennas will be mounted during the scheduled January 25 EVA. Three of the antennas are for VHF-UHF, while the fourth will support HF, although no HF gear is aboard the ISS at this point.
Installation of the new antenna on Zvezda paves the way for two separate ham stations aboard Space Station Alpha. Tentative plans call for a 2-meter station to remain in Zarya, while a second 70-cm station will be set up in the Zvezda using the newly installed antenna. Additional equipment was transported to the ISS in November that supports the move to independent 2-meter and 70-cm station sites.
Bauer congratulated the ARISS International team on the successful installation of the first ham antenna on the ISS. "It was pretty exciting to see the unfurled ISS ham antenna system permanently mounted on the outside edge of the Service Module," he said. "The antenna system looked breathtaking from the videos we witnessed while supporting the EVA."
 Astronaut Dan Bursch, KD5PNU, Mission Commander Yuri Onufrienko, RK3DUO, and astronaut Carl Walz, KC5TIE, in the Destiny laboratory of the ISS. [NASA Photo] |
ARISS ARRL representative Rosalie White, K1STO, said she, too, was pleased to see this phase of the project coming together. "It's strange to realize it really happened after all this time," she said. "We started all this in 1998--and now we have a permanent antenna on the outside of the station. Pretty cool!"
Bauer credited Lou McFadin, W5DID; Mark Steiner, K3MS; Ken Nichols, KD3VK; and Mark Clausen with providing support for the antenna installation from the NASA Goddard/ISS Ham-Goddard Control Center. He said Carolynn Conley, KD5JSO, provided antenna installation support at NASA's Johnson Space Center Mission Control Center.
"Congratulations team on a job well done. We have taken our ideas, concepts and vision and transformed them into reality."
The antenna installation got top billing in several high-profile media outlets covering the space walk. Ham radio was mentioned on CNN and National Public Radio and in several stories picked up by the Associated Press news wire. Amateur Radio also got a good plug in connection with the antenna installation in a front page story in the Wall Street Journal.
The Expedition Four crew is into its second month in orbit aboard the ISS. Crew members have not yet been active on Amateur Radio, although an ARISS school contact with students at St Clare School in Waveland, Mississippi, is scheduled for January 16, and several others are pending for this month and next.
ARISS is a collaboration of ARRL, AMSAT and NASA. For more information,
visit the ARISS Web site. --Jennifer Hagy, N1TDY, provided
some information for this report
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