SpaceCam1 To Offer Direct HAM Link To ISS
This is cool.
HAM Radio operators and just about anyone on the internet could
soon be able to receive images from the International Space
Station. Project leaders say the operation could be up and running
by next year. The slow-scan television system will only be able to
send stills captured by a television camera (or two or three...)
aboard the ISS.
MSNBC reports the SpaceCam1 project is different from NASA's own
multi-billion dollar satellite communications network in that it
will always be available. Users would be able to access the video
HAM technology any time.
“Anybody with a police scanner and a simple outdoor
antenna will be able to receive images directly from the space
station when we put them on the air,” said Miles Mann, one of
the project's managers, in an exclusive MSNBC interview. Mann's
group, MAREX-MG, along with a group called Amateur Radio on the
International Space Station (ARISS), is spearheading a volunteer
effort to put SpaceCam1 on the air.
MSNBC reports NASA has given its blessing to the project, using
HAM gear already on board the ISS. In fact, the website reports,
new HAM equipment was delivered to Space Station Alpha just last
week. SpaceCam1 technology could be sent on the next Progress
resupply ship.
Right now, ISS crew members use the HAM system for unofficial
communications with families and friends.
ARISS International Chairman Frank Bauer said the slow-scan
television system means a big step toward turning the space station
into a full-fledged broadcast TV station.
"Some of the plans are to have a video capability several years
down the road — a live video uplink and downlink,” he
told MSNBC.com. “That’s some of the vision of where
we’re going. I think we’ve got the foundation
now.”
As revolutionary as it sounds, the SpaceCam1 project wouldn't be
the first time astronauts orbiting Earth traded video imagery via
HAM radio. It was used extensively on the Russian MIR station in
1985 (last transmitted photo below) and has been used on NASA
shuttle missions ever since. Slow Scan Television (SSTV) isn't a
new technology. It's been around since the 1950s.
But Mann says SpaceCam1
will be "a whole generation different." It'll use a web camera to
plug into an astronaut's laptop. Software will transcribe the video
imagery into radio signals for transmission. If you're interested,
Mann says there will be a free "receive only" version of the
software for use here on Earth.
It Gets Even More Cool
Remember that part about the HAM operation running with NASA's
blessing, but free of NASA control? Remember the other part about
the ISS being the world's most far-reaching broadcast station?
Check this out.
Let's say you're in New England. You want to send an image via
HAM radio to another operator in Los Angeles. Can't reach?
Atmospherics too bothersome? Bah. Send it to the ISS and have it
relayed to your friend on the other side of the country.
The whole SpaceCam1 project would cost about $50,000. While
prohibitively expensive to most HAM operators (who pride themselves
on their thrift), it's a drop in the bucket among space
expenditures. But that's the beauty of it all.
"The infrastructure that’s required to do a contact
through the space agency channels is very expensive, and
what’s done in the ham-radio community is very inexpensive,
with a lot of volunteers," said Frank Bauer at ARISS. "The students
are making the contact, the students are involved, the students are
tracking the space station.... It produces an element of teamwork,
and as anybody knows, the only way you really learn is by doing it
yourself."