[jamsat-news:1253] * SpaceNews 03-Apr-00 *

[John Magliacane <magliaco@email.njin.net>]

SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0403
* SpaceNews 03-Apr-00 *

BID: $SPC0403


			       =========
			       SpaceNews
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		 	 MONDAY APRIL 3, 2000



* NEW PACSAT/APRS SOFTWARE *
============================
Doug, KA2UPW has completed his Pacsat Sound Card uplink software that can
uplink Manchester encoded 1200 baud packet data to the AO16, LO19 and IO26
packet digipeaters.  He has placed UPW version 1.05 on the web.  UPW is
the soundcard digital signal processing program that allows anyone with
a computer, soundcard, and 2-meter FM transmitter to uplink APRS style
status/positions/messages to the 1200 baud Pacsats.

The zipped executable is available at:

	http://members.aol.com/dquagliana/upw/upw105.zip

The documentation is available at:

	http://members.aol.com/dquagliana/upw/index.html

[Info via Doug, KA2UPW, and Bob, WB4APR]


* STS-101 NEWS *
================
The upcoming space shuttle mission to the International Space Station
will be delayed to give the commander of the shuttle Atlantis more
time to train after an ankle injury.  NASA officials reported that the
Atlantis ISS mission has been rescheduled to April 24, 2000. The flight
had been targeted for April 18th.

The commander, Air Force Colonel James Halsell, recently injured his
left ankle during training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"He needs time to complete his training activities,'' NASA spokesman
Bruce Buckingham said.  Buckingham also said some of the other Atlantis
crewmembers joined the team "fairly late'' but that their training
has now been completed.

The late-arriving crew joined the Atlantis team after the decision was
made to split the April mission into two flights because of Russian delays
in completing the Zvezda service module.  A second Atlantis flight is
planned for mid-August after the scheduled July launch of the Russian
module, which is to supply early living quarters and propulsion.  Only
after ISS living quarters are established will Amateur Radio operation
begin from the orbiter.

The April 24th mission from the Kennedy Space Center will be a nine
day, 19-hour mission to service the two connected pieces of the station
that now are in orbit.  The mission also will include a spacewalk.
The flight is one of at least 40 flights and 1,700 space walks planned
during the next five years to the space station.

[Info via the AMSAT-NA News Service]


* NEW VERSIONS OF PREDICT RELEASED *
====================================
New DOS and Linux versions of KD2BD's satellite tracking and orbital
prediction software PREDICT were recently released.  PREDICT is free
software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public
License.  The new release adds the following features over earlier
versions:

* A solar illumination feature was added to predict the percentage
  of time a satellite spends in sunlight per day.

* Orbital predictions for satellites that appear to have decayed
  since the last Keplerian orbital update are no longer attempted
  by the program.

* Date and time used to start orbital predictions may now be
  abbreviated to Day/Month/Year only (00:00:00 is assumed).

* System clock/calendar is now read to millisecond precision,
  permitting more "lively" real-time tracking mode displays. 

* The command-line parsing code was modified to prevent segmentation
  faults from occurring if command-line options are incorrectly issued.

* Some minor coding changes were made.

The new Linux version also includes the following changes:

* "vocalizer" code was changed to use a slightly different (better)
   approach towards initializing and sending data to the system
   soundcard.

* Socket-based server code was contributed by Ivan Galysh, KD4HBO.
  It allows PREDICT to export real-time tracking data for all 24
  satellites to external client programs, such as automatic antenna
  rotator controllers, graphical map display programs, or TX/RX
  tuning controllers.  The server features are activated by invoking
  PREDICT with a -s switch.  Communication between server and clients
  is by way of the UDP protocol.  Real-time data is exported by PREDICT
  in both the single satellite and multi-satellite tracking modes.

Sample code is included with the program to aid in developing client
applications.

Full source code is included in both the DOS and Linux versions.

Further information is available at:

	http://www.linuxfan.com/~predict

PREDICT for Linux may be downloaded from:
  
	ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/software/Linux/predict-2.1.1.tar.gz

PREDICT for DOS may be downloaded from:

	ftp://ftp.amsat.org/amsat/sofware/PC/tracking/predict2.0.2d.zip


* FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED *
===========================
Comments and input for SpaceNews should be directed to the editor
(John, KD2BD) via any of the paths listed below:
 
WWW:        http://www.njin.net/~magliaco/
MAIL:       John A. Magliacane, KD2BD
            Department of Engineering and Technology
            Brookdale Community College
            765 Newman Springs Road
            Lincroft, New Jersey 07738
	    U.S.A.
PACKET:     KD2BD @ N2TDU.NJ.USA.NA
INTERNET:   kd2bd@amsat.org, magliaco@email.njin.net
SATELLITE:  AMSAT-OSCAR-16, KITSAT-OSCAR-25


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/EX

--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- John A. Magliacane, KD2BD -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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