ISS Fan Club

Two Russian spacewalkers installed a docking target and changed out science experiments during their second career spacewalk on Tuesday outside the International Space Station.

The almost six-hour spacewalk began on schedule at 1:08 p.m. EDT (1708 GMT) and allowed space station commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko to finish their tasks on time — despite an added, impromptu fix to a disabled ham radio antenna.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080715-spacewalk-wrap.html

If you're out watching the twilight sky in the time frame from 45 to 90 minutes before sunrise, or 45 to 90 minutes after sunset, you'll might see a few "moving stars." They are most likely artificial satellites.

The brightest of all is the International Space Station, and this month provides some great opportunities to see it from just about anywhere.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/080711-ns-space-station.html

Cosmonauts successfully removed an explosive bolt from a Russian Soyuz spacecraft during a Thursday spacewalk.

Space station commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko dealt calmly with the unusual operation outside the International Space Station (ISS) as first-time spacewalkers, despite early troubles setting up a Strela hand-powered crane to reach the work site.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080710-spacewalk-wrap.html

NASA has set target launch dates for the eight space shuttle missions in 2009 and 2010 that are expected to be the fleet's last.

The pre-retirement schedule for the shuttle has 10 remaining flights, including missions already scheduled for Oct. 8 and Nov. 10 of this year.

The plan is to replace the shuttle fleet with the Orion craft, which is being built and tested now.

But first, seven assembly flights are slated to complete construction on the International Space Station, with an additional two contingency flights planned for completion before the end of the fiscal year 2010.

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NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems Inc. in Houston, a one-year contract extension valued at $42 million to provide integration services for cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station.

Lockheed Martin has held the station's cargo mission contract since January 2004. The one-year extension will bring the total value of the contract to $338 million.

The contract provides cargo packing for delivery to and from the space station, consisting of pressurized and unpressurized science and logistics carriers, assembly hardware and crew support. It also involves determining the most efficient way to pack the cargo, verifying the adequacy of the integrated carriers, packing the pressurized cargo into sub-carriers and returning the cargo to the providers once it returns to Earth. The contract also provides sustaining engineering for NASA carriers.

Following a detailed, integrated assessment, NASA selected target launch dates for the remaining eight space shuttle missions on the current manifest in 2009 and 2010. The manifest includes one flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, seven assembly flights to the International Space Station, and two station contingency flights, planned to be completed before the end of fiscal year 2010. The agency previously selected Oct. 8 and Nov. 10 as launch dates for Atlantis' STS-125 mission to service Hubble and Endeavour's STS-126 / ULF-2 mission to supply the space station and service both Solar Alpha Rotary Joints on the port and starboard end of its truss backbone that supports equipment and solar arrays.

NASA will hold a media briefing Wednesday, July 30, at 1 p.m. CDT, with the next resident crew of the International Space Station and an American spaceflight participant.

The briefing will originate from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and will be broadcast live on NASA Television. Questions will be taken from news media at participating NASA sites.

The briefing participants include:
- Expedition 18 Commander and NASA astronaut Michael Fincke
- Expedition 18 Flight Engineer and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov
- Expedition 18 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus
- Expedition 18 Flight Engineer and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata

Astronauts Joe Acaba, KE5DAR, and Ricky Arnold, KE5DAU, participated in an ARISS basic operations training session on Thursday, June 26 at JSC. Both crew members are assigned to the STS-119 mission, which will bring Koichi Wakata to the ISS and return Sandy Magnus.

Nicole Stott, KE5GJN, Sandy Magnus, KE5FYE, and JAXA astronauts Koichi Wakata, KC5ZTA, and Soichi Noguchi, KD5TVP, received training on the ARISS ham radio equipment. Photos of the Energia training session are available on the following Web site:
http://www.energia.ru/eng/news/news-2008/photo_06-20.html

ARISS delegate Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, was recognized at the Ham Fair in Friedrichshafen, Germany for his many contributions to amateur radio including his ARISS work, his efforts on the Columbus antennas, and his selection for the CQ Hall of Fame. Ham Fair is the largest amateur radio convention in Europe and was held over the weekend of June 27-29.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/news/

An International Space Station Expedition 17 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants from the Round Rock Texas Scout Pack #304 and Blackland Prairie Elementary School in Round Rock, Texas on 04 July. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 16:32 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and W5KA. The contact should be audible over central North America. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

Cub Scout Pack 304 consists of about 50 boys, most of whom are students at Blackland Prairie Elementary School in Round Rock, Texas. The pack and the school are participating in this contact as a joint educational project. The project reinforces what the Cubs have been learning in their Science class, and enables them to earn some of the requirements for their “Scientist” activity badge in Scouting. The Cub’s radio station has been set up at the school.