Chitika: Russia

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Bill, Pete,

In keeping with historical events, I have enclosed a few snap-shots from the 1961 Pittsburgh Press dated Wednesday, April 12, 1961.
Yes, a few of us recall that very day. I had filed this newspaper in my Scrap Book back then. It was a bitter sweet thing, to read for most, as we hoped the U.S. to be first but none-the-less, we smiled anyway because, it proved a person could go into space and return. (Flight Breaks Barrier to Space Travel). I was very enthusiastic about Rockets, Travel and current events. I built my own capsule in the rafters of my parents home and spent all day up there in the tiny confines as I launched my own secret adventures into Outer-Space.

Hope you enjoy the photos. I can provide a better set of copies if you are interested.

73's

Harv - WA3EIB
Idaho Falls, ID

Harv: I converted a small closet into what I saw as an excellent simulator of the Apollo 11 Command Module. Bill

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Mark, K6HX, took a break from Hummingbird photography and captured some of the images streaming down from the International Space Station on Cosmonautics Day (April 11): http://brainwagon.org/2015/04/11/sstv-from-the-iss/
Very cool Mark (and I think the bird pictures are just as cool!)

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

http://m0dcm.co.uk/?tag=sstv

From the ARISS Web Site:

http://www.ariss.org/news.html

Latest NewsApril 6, 2015

ISS Slow Scan TV Expected Weekend of April 11
In celebration of Cosmonautics Day, Russian ARISS SSTV activity is planned for the second week of April.

Cosmonautics Day celebrates Yuri Gagarin’s famous flight on April 12, 1961 becoming the first human to reach space.

The SSTV event is planned for Saturday, April 11, beginning at 10:00 UTC and continuing until 21:00 UTC. All transmissions will use the high resolution SSTV mode PD180. Transmissions will be at 145.800 MHz. If similar to past events, 12 different photos will be sent through the weekend with 3 minute off periods between transmissions.

To receive the images in real time, all that’s required is a 2 meter radio receiver and a computer to convert the receiver’s audio to image form. The software to do this is available as freeware on the internet at sites such as http://hamsoft.ca/pages/mmsstv.php. Received images can be uploaded and viewed at the ARISS Image gallery found at http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php .

Those capturing images are encouraged to upload them to http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/submit.php

Uploaded images may be viewed at http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/

Please be advised that situational demands on crew time could result in postponement or cancellation of any ARISS activity. Please pay attention to the possibility of any change in scheduling.

Soviet Union-1965-Stamp-0.12. Cosmonautics Day.jpg

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Bill,
I'm new to SolderSmoke, and have made it up to episode 135. around episode 130 you entered a "space" phase that I enjoyed. With Sputnik being mentioned, I thought I would send you a recording of Sputnik 40 that I made on November 23, 1997. I used a home made turnstile antenna and an HT.

73,
Jeff Tucker
W9TLT

Listen to Jeff's recording here:

http://soldersmoke.com/sputnik97.wav

Sputnik 40, also known as Sputnik Jr, and Radio Sputnik 17 (RS-17), was a Franco-Russian amateur radio satellite which was launched in 1997 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. A 4-kilogram (8.8 lb) one-third scale model of Sputnik 1, Sputnik 40 was deployed from the Mir space station on 3 November 1997. Built by students, the spacecraft was constructed at the Polytechnic Laboratory of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria, whilst its transmitter was assembled by Jules Reydellet College in Réunion with technical support from AMSAT-France.

Sputnik 40 was launched, along with a backup spacecraft and the X-Mir inspection satellite, aboard Progress M-36 at 15:08 UTC on 5 October 1997. A Soyuz-U carrier rocket placed the spacecraft into orbit, flying from 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan: the same launch pad used by Sputnik 1. Progress M-36 docked to Mir on 8 October, and the satellites were transferred to the space station. At 04:05 UTC on 3 November, during an extra-vehicular activity, Sputnik 40 was deployed by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Pavel Vinogradov.

On 4 November, the day after it was deployed, Sputnik 40 was in a low Earth orbit with a perigee of 376 kilometres (234 mi), an apogee of 382 kilometres (237 mi), an inclination of 51.6 degrees, and a period of 92.13 minutes.The satellite was given the International Designator 1997-058C, and was catalogued by the United States Space Command as 24958. It ceased operations on 29 December 1997 when its batteries expired, and subsequently decayed from orbit on 21 May 1998. The backup satellite remained aboard Mir, and was destroyed when Mir was deorbited on 23 March 2001.

On October 7, 1959, the Soviets sent an "automatic interplanetary station" to the moon. This, in itself, was an amazing achievement. Even more amazing is how they managed -- using 1950s technology -- to photograph the far side of the moon and get the images back to the earth.

The Soviet document on the Harvard site (below) says that the transmitter put out "a few watts" and used semiconductors. There appears, however, to have been at least one vacuum tube aboard (the cathode ray tube used to scan the chemically developed photo negatives). Frequency modulated analog video similar to FAX) was used to send the data.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1962IAUS...14....7L/0000007.000.html

From Wikipedia:

Luna-3 was the first successful three-axis stabilized spacecraft. During most of the mission, the spacecraft was spin stabilized, but for photography of the Moon, the spacecraft oriented one axis toward the Sun and then a photocell was used to detect the Moon and orient the cameras towards it. Detection of the Moon signaled the camera cover to open and the photography sequence to start automatically. The images alternated between both cameras during the sequence. After photography was complete, the film was moved to an on-board processor where it was developed, fixed, and dried. Commands from the Earth were then given to move the film into a scanner where a spot produced by a cathode ray tube was projected through the film onto a photoelectric multiplier. The spot was scanned across the film and the photomultiplier converted the intensity of the light passing through the film into an electric signal which was transmitted to the Earth (via frequency-modulated analog video, similar to a facsimile). A frame could be scanned with a resolution of 1000 (horizontal) lines and the transmission could be done at a slow-scan television rate at large distances from the Earth and a faster rate at closer ranges.
The camera took 29 pictures over 40 minutes on 7 October 1959, from 03:30 UT to 04:10 UT at distances ranging from 63,500 km to 66,700 km above the surface, covering 70% of the lunar far side. Seventeen (some say twelve) of these frames were successfully transmitted back to the Earth, and six were published (frames numbered 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, and 35). They were mankind's first views of the far hemisphere of the Moon.

More info: http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/luna3/Luna3story.html#Film

We were searching for this last year. Oleg, RV3GM, finally found the schematic for the transmitter in the Sputnik satellite.

ftp://ftp.radio.ru/pub/2013/04/55.pdf

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Chitika

One more on Gagarin

Cosmonautics Day Follow-up

Happy Cosmonautics Day! Yuri Gagarin Images (SSTV) from Space This Weekend

http://m0dcm.co.uk/?tag=sstv

From the ARISS Web Site:

http://www.ariss.org/news.html

Sputnik 40 Launched from MIR in 1997

First Pictures of the Far Side of the Moon (1959!)

Happy World Cosmonautics Day!

Sputnik Schematic Found!

AHMED HASSAN MOHAMMED

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