Just confirmed by the NASA TV commenter that the UHF antenna is missing. The question is whether to deploy today with diminished capabilility or return to inside of ISS and do a search for the missing antenna. There will not be an EVA until 2012 (month?) to retry a deployment.
It was not clear to me if the commenter stated that the antenna arrived originally and was installed or was that a question. Listening to the exercise to install the laser comm system is kind interesting to hear the back-n-forth conversation as it makes one wonder if they had practised this maneuver with all the corrections given in their procedure by the ground director. I did note the VHF antenna appears a flexible tape design and it was flexed several times as it was bumped about. However everything is weightless so this may actually be not very forcefull "bumps" and flexes of the antenna. The lower side was not visible on camera very much but I noted it appeared to only have the cylindrical antenna base. I assume this is the UHF antenna so would be shorter than the topside antenna. I call the side with switches as topside. I did see what appeared activating the switches, but hearing what was said was difficult on TV. I am now listening/watching live-streaming video coverage and wearing headsets to listen. I was ready to copy CW&Telemetry on 145.919 with the ARISSat tlm sw and stream data. I guess we will not be doing anything today - probably? 73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 50-1.1kw?, 144-1.4kw, 432-100w, 1296-60w, 3400-? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubus...@gmail.com ====================================== _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
