SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS002<br />ARLS002 New Amateur Radio antenna installed in space!<p>ZCZC AS02 <br />QST de W1AW <br />Space Bulletin 002 ARLS002<br />>From ARRL Headquarters <br />Newington, CT January 15, 2002<br />To all radio amateurs<p>SB SPACE ARL ARLS002<br />ARLS002 New Amateur Radio antenna installed in space.<p>Amateur Radio on the International Space Station got a new antenna<br />January 14, thanks to a spacewalk by Expedition 4 crew members Yuri<br />Onufrienko, RK3DUO, and Carl Walz, KC5TIE. Another of new ARISS ham<br />antenna--there are four in all--could be installed January 25.<p>''It was beautiful to watch,'' ARISS Board Chairman Frank Bauer,<br />KA3HDO, said. ''It went like clockwork, everything deploying just as<br />it was supposed to.''<p>While crewmate Dan Bursch, KD5PNU, operated the robotic arm and<br />monitored and videotaped the spacewalk--or EVA--from inside the ISS,<br />Onufrienko and Walz first relocated a Russian Strela cargo crane<br />used to maneuver equipment and spacewalkers. Then, they installed<br />the flexible-tape VHF-UHF Amateur Radio antenna on a handrail at the<br />end of the Zvezda Service Module--the crew's living quarters. The<br />new VHF-UHF antenna is the first one designed for and dedicated<br />specifically to support ARISS operations.<p>Installation of the new antenna on Zvezda paves the way for two<br />separate ham stations aboard Space Station Alpha. The ARISS initial<br />ham station gear--single-band hand-held transceivers for 2 meters<br />and 70 cm--now is installed in the Zarya Functional Cargo Block.<br />Tentative plans call for a 2-meter station to remain in Zarya, while<br />a second 70-cm station will be set up in Zvezda using the newly<br />installed antenna.<p>ARISS ARRL representative Rosalie White, K1STO, said she, too, was<br />pleased to see this phase of the project coming together. ''We<br />started all this in 1998--and now we have a permanent antenna on the<br />outside of the station,'' she said. ''Pretty cool.''<p>Bauer congratulated the ARISS international team for their<br />assistance in the antenna project. ''We have taken our ideas,<br />concepts and vision and transformed them into reality,'' he said.<p>ARISS is a collaboration of ARRL, AMSAT and NASA. For more<br />information, visit the ARISS Web site, http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov.<br />NNNN<br />/EX