The Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) contact with Paltamo High School
Markku Korhonen
E-mail: oh8uv@kainuumedia.fi.
(PS All comments and questions about the story are very wellcome, please feel free to send me a message. Also you can find my home page
OH8UV "If you wish upon a star..." 73´s de Markku)
SAREX STS-59 Endeavour N5QWL - OH8AK, Paltamo, Finland
STS-59 Space Radar Laboratory-1 mission lasted 11 days 5 hours
and 49 minutes (Apr 9 - Apr 20, 1994). The launch was
postponed twice 24 hours first because of some technical
inspections and second time there was bad weather.
The launch occured on April 9, 1994 at 11:05 UTC (7:05 a.m.
EDT), 14:05 local time in Finland.
Also there was 2 extra days on orbit because of bad weather
on the landing site. Endeavour and its crew of six landed
safely at Edwards Air Force Base in Mojave Desert,
California at 11:54 a.m. CDT Apr 20, 1994.
The mission was studying how the Earth's global environment
is changing. As Endeavour was making its 183 orbits and
travelling a total of 4.7 million statute miles, the SRL-1
instruments recorded a total of 133 hour of data on 165 data
tapes, mapping the equivalent of 20 percent of the Earth's
surface. Endeavour made a record 412 maneuvers while in
orbit. The data recorded during the STS-59 mission could
fill the equivalent of 20.000 encyclopedia volumes and
scientists report that more than 70 million square
kilometers of the Eart's surface has been mapped on this
flight. This represents about 12 percent of Earth's total
surface and 25 percent of the planets's land surfaces.
There were 2 hams on the mission: Linda M. Godwin, N5RAX,
payload commander, and Jay Apt, N5QWL, mission specialist,
who has been also very active on ham radio during his
previous flights. This was Linda's second space flight and
Jay's third. They both were on Atlantis STS-37 all-ham-crew
on 1991. Jay's second flight was on the crew of Endeavour
STS-47 on 1992. Before this flight Linda was logged over 143
hours and Jay 334 hours in space, including his 10 hours and
49 minutes on two space walks.
The commander of STS-59 flight was Sidney M. Gutierrez,
pilot Kevin P. Chilton and mission specialists M.R."Rich"
Clifford and Thomas B. Jones.
There was made hundreds of FM-qsos and about 5000 packet
radio contacts. There was 9 scheduled SAREX-school contacts
and two of them were outside the USA: one in Australia and
one in Paltamo, Finland.
School group success rate was 89 % which is one of the best
ever. Only one of the skeds was cancelled because of the
thunderstorm in Texas.
Radio signals from the flight were well received in Finland.
SAREX-PROJECT IN PALTAMO
1983
The first amateur radio operator (W5LFL) on the air from
the space. The Paltamo Junior/High School (OH8UV) was QRV and
listening every available orbit and finally the shuttle was heard
while supervising a detension in a class room.
1985 - 1992 working, studying...
SAREX - that´s it!
Sarex application was sent. We were waiting for schedule...
So we´re gonna to have a qso...
How about an audio file? Prelaunch of
Columbia. (prelaunc.au, 182 k)
We are ready to rock!
It was a success.
Famous words.