After being out of service for some time, the RS0ISS packet system aboard the International Space Station reappeared briefly on August 24, much to the delight of packet users. But it didn’t stay in operation very long. Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) International Chairman Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, says he still hopes the current crew of Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP, and Ed Lu, KC5WKJ, can get to the bottom of what’s wrong with the packet module before the Expedition 8 crew arrives in October.
Bauer says Malenchenko was able to reactivate the packet system on August 24 at around 1200 UTC. “Over the next nine hours, many hams around the world sent unproto digi signals through the packet system,” he said, before the system abruptly quit. Bauer says the ARISS team has had several discussions on what the next steps should be.
Complicating the debugging effort, he said, is Progress rocket undocking and docking maneuvers that will occur over the next few days, leaving little extra time for the crew to troubleshoot the problem. Bauer said the current plan is to have Malenchenko provide a visual status report of the packet module (ie, which switches are on, what LEDs are illuminated).
Bauer says having Malenchenko recycle the power should bring the packet system back up. “If the system abruptly shuts down after a few hours–as we expect–we will then ask the crew to attach a computer to the packet module, download the current parameters to the ground and reset the module,” he said.
Bauer has expressed confidence that the packet problems will be resolved and that ARISS will move on to other challenges–including the installation of the Phase 2 hardware in a couple of months. “Please keep the faith,” he said.