SAREX pioneer Owen Garriott, W5LFL, as he appeared on the cover of QST, February 1984.
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SAREX pioneer Owen Garriott, W5LFL, as he appeared on the cover of QST, February 1984. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Dec 1, 1998--The Space Amateur Radio EXperiment--or SAREX--program marked its 15th anniversary November 28. On that day in 1983, US astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, was launched into space aboard the shuttle Columbia during the STS-9 mission. "He brought along the first Amateur Radio station on a crew-tended space vehicle," said NASA's Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO. Bauer is the AMSAT-NA vice president for human spaceflight programs and a member of the SAREX Working Group. "Thousands heard Owen's downlink, and hundreds had a direct QSO with him."
Among those who heard Garriott's Amateur Radio transmissions from space were youngsters at Avery Street School in South Windsor, Connecticut. Lance Collister, WA1JXN (now W7GJ), of Montana is credited with being the first amateur to work an astronaut in orbit.
In addition to random contacts, SAREX has permitted youngsters and youth in classrooms around the world to speak directly with astronauts in space for the first time. Since the inception of SAREX in 1983, Amateur Radio has flown aboard 23 NASA shuttle missions as well as aboard the Russian Mir space station. Students were able to talk directly with astronauts on many of those spaceflights. The next scheduled SAREX mission is expected to take place next spring. The school-contacts program relies on amateur volunteers who arrange to provide the radio link between Earth and the spacecraft.
SAREX Pioneer Owen Garriott, W5LFL |
SAREX is a joint venture of the ARRL, AMSAT-NA, and NASA. The SAREX Working Group is chaired by retired NBC science correspondent Roy Neal, K6DUE. The SAREX acronym originally stood for "Shuttle" Amateur Radio EXperiment. In recent months "Shuttle" has quietly changed to "Space" as SAREX has come to incorporate missions involving US astronauts aboard the Russian Mir space station and the International Space Station (ISS) now under construction. Amateur Radio is an official payload aboard the ISS. The prospect of a permanent Amateur Radio presence in space has spawned a new acronym, ARISS.
For his part, Bauer--who's also an ARISS delegate--expressed his gratitude and congratulations for "the hundreds of volunteers around the world who have taken the dream that was shared by Owen, the ARRL, AMSAT-NA and NASA and turned it into a reality that has benefited the worldwide community of radio amateurs as well as students in classrooms."
Bauer said he looks forward to "the continued cooperation of all the international partners that comprise ARISS as we jointly forge a new, exciting future for amateur radio in space.
ARRL Educational Activities Department Manager Rosalie White, WA1STO, coordinates the SAREX school QSO schedule at ARRL HQ. She also is a member of the SAREX Working Group and an ARISS delegate. "SAREX is a very bright star in the Amateur Radio horizon--for schoolchildren, for individual hams and for communities," she said. "It is an activity that the astronauts tremendously enjoy, because it sparks children's interest in exciting scientific fields, including our great hobby, Amateur Radio."
An enthusiastic SAREX user, F Costa, CT1EAT, in Portugal says he's looking forward to the first ham radio signals from the ISS and plans to award a bottle of Oport wine, vintage 1985, to the first station to complete a voice QSO with the ISS. Costa explains that 1985 was "the best vintage year close to the first SAREX mission date."
For more information on the SAREX program, contact Jean Wolfgang, WB3IOS, at ARRL HQ, jwolfgang@arrl.org.
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