calling all ham-radio nerds: SuitSat
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:14 pm
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006 ... uitsat.htm
Using a simple police scanner or ham radio, you can listen to a disembodied spacesuit circling Earth.
Using a simple police scanner or ham radio, you can listen to a disembodied spacesuit circling Earth.
January 26, 2006: One of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age is about to go into orbit. Launch date: Feb. 3rd. That's when astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will hurl an empty spacesuit overboard.
The spacesuit is the satellite -- "SuitSat" for short.
"SuitSat is a Russian brainstorm," explains Frank Bauer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "Some of our Russian partners in the ISS program, mainly a group led by Sergey Samburov, had an idea: Maybe we can turn old spacesuits into useful satellites." SuitSat is a first test of that idea.