[K3PZN-List] Maryland, DC, Virginia Balloon Test Flights

[Pat Kilroy]

Attention Amateur Radio Operators

I AM ABOUT to embark on a series of high-altitude
balloon flights carrying amateur radio as part of
an education and outreach program at my work
place.

The Simulated Satellite program, or SimSat, as it
has been called, is meant to act as a starting
pathway for the youth of our country to discover
amateur satellites, AMSAT, and influence their
choice of a major in college: toward the engineering,
technology, and science fields.  The students will
then grow up and become more informed citizens or,
for many, go off to work for a company that is,
quite literally, GOING TO THE MOON under the
country's new space initiative.  (For example: it's
a done deal already, NASA Goddard will be the lead
Center for the first two NASA missions: a lunar
orbiter with a mapping mission and then a lander,
likely at one of the lunar poles.  But I digress,
so visit http://www.nasa.gov/ to check out the
"President's Space Commission Report" and the "Next
Steps Of NASA Transformation" sooner or later.)

The SimSat program has begun to align itself with
several existing amateur balloon groups and with
universities revving up on similar endeavors.  But
first things first, ...

Before we fully engage the youth, my core team has a
series of engineering test flights this summer and
fall to get through.  I'd like to invite the general
ham radio population to participate.  The volunteer
positions available include ground station setup/
checkout/operation, storing and forwarding files of
downlinked telemetry, experiment development, some
design/building/testing of hardware, mentoring,
tracking and recovery, post flight analysis, and
preparations for the challenges of follow up
flights.

Did I include mentoring students, eventually, at
the local high school level? (What is simple to
you and me in a basic ham radio ground station is
a BIG mystery to them.  We need de-mystifiers!)

I set up a separate e-mail list so that we don't
inundate this list, especially around mission time.

Interested?  Stations call now.  E-mail is the
best mode at this time.  This is N8PK, Greenbelt,
Maryland.  Over.

73 de Pat
SimSat Principal Investigator
NASA GSFC


>Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 16:29:40 -0400
>From: Pat Kilroy <Patrick.L.Kilroy at nasa.gov>
>Subject: WA3NAN: BalloonSat June 19 Success!
>
>SIMSAT TRIP REPORT
>
>FYI, below are links to the balloon flight operations I was
>involved in last weekend in remote NE Colorado.  Photos, maps
>and other fun stuff are available.  You may note that the EOSS
>web site includes recorded audio of me and other tracker
>mobiles on the radio comm system during the "chase".  Awesome!
>
>Cheers,
>
>Pat
>N8PK
>SimSat PI
>
>My web site
>http://www.patkilroy.com/balloonsat2004/
>
>Edge Of Space Sciences (EOSS)
>http://www.eoss.org/ansrecap/ar_100/recap79.htm
>
>BalloonSat Workshop (complete package)
>includes Agenda, with other photos to come
>https://spacegrant.colorado.edu/studentsat/

Since the above forwarded message was broadcast, the
Montana folks updated their web site as a result of our
balloon launch and recovery:
http://spacegrant.montana.edu/borealis/



====================================================================
Patrick L. Kilroy                                                WK
Integration & Test (I&T) Manager        301-286-1984 voice
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center        301-286-1673 fax
Building 5, Mail Code 568               Patrick.L.Kilroy at nasa.gov
Greenbelt, Maryland  20771              http://simsat.gsfc.nasa.gov
====================================================================

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