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."

FMI: www.marexmg.org, www.rac.ca/ariss