DATV from space - your help needed

[G3VZV]

A meeting of the ARCOL (Amateur Radio on Columbus) team was held in mid October in Belgium to further develop the plans and specifications for the amateur radio equipment to be installed in the Columbus module of the ISS.

The Columbus module was delivered to the ISS early this year and has two dual band L/S antennas already installed on the outside. In addition there are plans for the installation of two additional VHF/UHF dual band antennas during a spacewalk in mid to late 2009.

These new antennas would provide even greater flexibility for ARCOL operations but the main focus of the planning team remains to incorporate a digital video downlink and possibly some form of video uplink capability as well.

There are tremendous constraints on what can be done, the mass has to be very small, the power consumption and thermal dissipation also will have to be very small. However the intent is to provide a system which astronauts could use whilst making their schools contacts (these are currently voice only affairs!) and which could be used by individual radio amateurs at other times.

With the mass and power limitations comes the challenge of the link budget…how big an antenna would be needed on the ground? It looks likely that the video will have to be restricted to 200-400kB data rate but that is still conjecture.

What is REALLY needed at this moment is an injection of fresh ideas and equipment designs from additional ATV experts in this field.

There are further meetings planned with ESA for early next year but if you are interested in becoming part of the ARCOL team and contributing towards the future of ATV in space please contact me in the first instance!

http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&t ... t=3&size=b

Graham Shirville

G3VZV g3vzv-at-amsat.org