Category Archives: space

Doctor Who 2008 has started

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The 4th season of the “New Doctor Who” has started on the BBC.

BBC started last Saturday with the episode “Partners in Crime” , quite a fun story, where Donna Noble from the Christmas Special 2006 reappears searching for the Doctor, misses him several times , and we see them meet again in a very amusing scene – that could have been a little shorter, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. We also briefly meet an old friend under mysterious circumstances , I will say no more , you will have to enjoy the moment for yourself.

Second episode brings us back about 2000 years to “witness” the destruction of Pompei, for the first time the Doctor Who team has been filming outside the UK. Quite a spectacular illustration of the volcano blowing up and the city buried under the ashes. As usual , when the Doctor arrives , things go awry, and he has to correct the flow of history , being put into a bit of a dilemma.

I quite enjoyed both episodes, and I am looking forward to the next ones , and solving the mystery of the first episode.

More real life space communications (2)

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The Soyuz spacecraft has successfully docked to the ISS today.

Yesterday I listened for radio communications from the Soyuz, and was rewarded with hearing a few exchanges in Russian. They were likely talking to the ground station in Moscow. The frequency for Soyuz is 121.750 MHz, if any of you should have a scanner receiver. The signal was quite strong, even with a wrong sized antenna, so it should not be too difficult to hear.

Good hunting if you try – They will probably be radio-active for a day or two when they leave the ISS and return to Earth.

In the meantime , if you are in Europe, you can listen for the ISS , in the rare cases when they talk back to Moscow, on the frequency 143.625 MHz.

Jules Verne has arrived at the International Space Station

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Yes – it is true …

The first ATV – Automatic Transfer Vehicle – has arrived and doced with the ISS. The name given to this ATV is “Jules Verne” , honouring the famous author (1828 – 1905) of old Science fiction classics like “Around the World in 80 Days”, “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, “From the Earth to the Moon” and “20.000 Leagues Under the Sea”.

The ATV is a European contribution to the ISS, along with the Columbus module – launched with the Space Shuttle and added to the ISS in February. The spacecraft pioneers the use of automatic docking, absolutely no human intervention. Only option would be to break off the docking procedure with a “go away” order. The ATV is designed to transport supplies to the station , and – as its final act – be filled with the garbage from the station and sent back into the Earth’s atmosphere. We could call it a cargo ship and an advanced garbage truck – combined with an incinerator.

Another function of the ATV is as a booster for increasinf the orbital altitude of the ISS, since the station is slowly being dragged towards a lower orbit due to that fact that there is still a *tiny* amount of atmosphere up there.

Read more about the ATV here

Last year I went with a friend to visit ESTEC’s space exhibition in The Netherlands. During a tour of the Estec facilities we got to see the Columbus module and the ATV, as they were being tested at the time. Nice to have seen real life spacecraft – knowing that both the station module and the ATV are safely orbiting the Earth.

More info at ESA’s website

More real life space communications

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When STS122 had just been launched, I went out to see if I could spot it and the ISS. The ISS arrived right on time and was *very* bright and easy to see (I missed the Shuttle, though). I had also brought my scanner radio receiver with me, and just before the ISS went into the Earth’s shadow , I heard a carrier wave for a few seconds , followed by [chorosho] (Russian for “good”) and a few more words in Russian, since they were communicating with a ground station in Russia.

In the first few orbits after launch of the space shuttle(s) and the last few orbits before the re-entry (landing) the shuttle uses the frequency 259.700 MHz (AM) for clear voice communications.

A few weeks later, when the STS-123 was launched, I joined a group listening for the Shuttle “Endeavour”. but since the high power (10 Watts) transmitter of the spacecraft was out, they were only transmitting with the low power (0.25 watts) transmitter. with my simple antenna and a long cable in to the receiver the signal was lost here, but a few other people around in Europe did hear them.

Since then I have had a preamplifier mounted at the antenna , so the loss in the cable has been compensated.

In the last few orbits before re-entry I listened for Endavour again – and even with their low power transmitter it was audible here. Signals were weak and noisy, but a few sentences were clearly heard here. Next time I will have to do some recordings.

Arthur C. Clarke died at 90

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I know this happened last week, but the preparations for going to the Eastercon/Orbital2008 have overshadowed most other things. See also previous post.

I first became aware of Atrhur C. Clarke through the movie/novel “2001 – A Space Oddyssey” which made a considreable impression on my young self.

One of my favorite longer stories by Clarke is “Rendezvous With Rama”.

I have on my shelf a brick of a book with about 100 short stories by Clarke , I think I will slowly work my way through those.

At the convention I found a signed copy of “Tales From the White Hart”, and despite the (understandably rather high) price I just had to get it. Should read the short stories in that one, too.

I see Arthur C. Clark as one of the giants in science fiction, and a very influential science writer – one of the few science fiction writers with a scientific writer’s background.

It was good to see a last minute addition to the Eastercon programme of a panel discussion about Clarke’s influence in science as well as science fiction. On top of that, one of the panelists had been the secretary for Arthur C. Clarke for about a year, and he could bring light on theless public sides of the author. Nicely done.

He will be missed in the scifi community.

Real Life Space Communications

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As we all know, a lot of science fiction involves space travel. We sometimes tend to forget that real life space travel already takes place, albeit on a somewhat limited scale.

This week end I did a little listening to spacecrafts on the radio. You may not believe it, but space communications is not as difficult as many people would think.

I was finding out when the ISS came over the horizon here and started listening to a relay station for ham (amateur) radio situated on the ISS. If there is not any spacewalks going on, the relay station is active listening on the 435MHz (uplink) band (70cm) and transmitting on the 145MHz (downlink) band (2m).
The downlink on 145.800MHz was clearly audible with a scanner radio and a simple whip antenna, as soon as I went out on the balcony of my apartment. On average the period with audible signals is 10 minutes per pass, shorter when the pass is near the horizon and longer when the station comes over my head.

Many years ago I sometimes set my receiver to 143.625MHz in order to listen for the MIR space station (yes – the Russian one), and have heard that one talking to the Earth station.

On some occasions it is possible to have a contact with one of the astronauts on the ISS, if they have the free time and interest. Almost all the astronauts have the license to transmit from up there.

In fact, the radio hams have several satellite relays orbiting the Earth, giving them the opportunity to try out space communications. Most of those are in a low Earth orbit, and therefore they are only useable for a short time. Some have a very elongated orbit (not really any right now), giving the opportunity for longer communication periods.

Most of us know about TV and communications satellites in the geostationary orbit (the satellite follows the Earth’s rotation and seems to be stationary over a certain point on the Earth). The dream of some radio hams is getting their satellite out there, giving 24/7 communications.

Just a dream … but maybe not any longer. There seems to be negociations going on between the AMSAT (Amateur Satellite) organisation and Inmarsat, about getting a lift with one of their satellites, and even sharing the power from the solar panels. We never know if this will come true, but I sure hope so.

Do not forget that the Space Station is a rather big satellite and is very easy to see when above the horizon. So – even if you cannot receive it on the radio you can go outside and observe a *real life* manned spacecraft. if you want to know when it can be observed at your place , go to Heavens Above and find out. it is a good idea to register, so you can have your location recognised when you log on.

Radio Astronomy and SETI

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On 11 october a new radio telescope started operation. The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in Hat Creek, CA is planned to be extended to an array of 350 dish antennas with a diameter of 6m (20ft) The inauguration was done with the first 42 of these dishes.

The ATA is built to do simultaneous radio astronmical observations and SETI work.

More detail can be found at the website for the SETI institute ATA ppress release.

I am quite excited, since the data collected from the ATA is *much* more than from traditional single dish telescopes , and more than will come from the VLA (Very Large Array) – and for a cost much loser than for older (traditional) radio telescopes.

For more about SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), take a look at at the websites :

SETI Institute

SETI League

SETI@home

50 years of the Space Age

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October 4th, 1957 saw the first successful launch of a satellite into space.

The (then) USSR lauched “Sputnik 1” becoming the first country entering the Space Age. Its characteristic “beep-beep” sound was heard by radio enthusiasts all over the world on approx. 20 MHz and 40 MHz. MOre information and a recording of the beeps can be found at the Wikipedia page concerning Sputnik 1 . (link at the bottom of the page)

One month later, on November 3rd, a second launch of Sputnik 2 with the first living being put in orbit. The dog Laika, unfortunately, had no way of returning alive to earth.

The first satellite launched by the US was Explorer 1 , on January 31st, 1958.

This marks the beginning of the “Space Race”, which continued through the 1960’s and 70’s.

The Space Age has had a lot of “ups and downs” , and I will come up with some highlights in later posts.