SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS008
ARLS008 SAREX scrambling to fill Mir-school schedule

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Space Bulletin 008  ARLS008
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington, CT  May 1, 1998
To all radio amateurs

SB SPACE ARL ARLS008
ARLS008 SAREX scrambling to fill Mir-school schedule

With less than a month to go before US astronaut Andy Thomas must
return to Earth from the Russian Mir space station, efforts are
under way to schedule as many Mir-school contacts as possible.
Thomas, who's KD5CHF, is scheduled to end his tour aboard the aging
Russian space outpost in early June. He*s the last US astronaut
scheduled to be aboard Mir.

On tap for May so far are Mir Amateur Radio contacts with schools in
New Hampshire, South Africa, Texas, and Tennessee, and others are
pending. The South African contact will occur during the Africa
Telecom 98 conference, to demonstrate how Amateur Radio on Mir--and
eventually aboard the International Space Station--can benefit
education. Attempts also are being made to firm up contact schedules
with school groups in Australia. The Australian government has
issued Thomas, a native of Adelaide, the special call sign VK5MIR.

Thomas has been especially active in recent months catching up on
the backlog of school contacts, which were halted after serious
technical problems cropped up aboard Mir in 1997. He has also
managed a few casual contacts. Nearly all of the activity has been
on 70 cm. The Mir crew has been preoccupied the past few weeks with
repair work that included a series of space walks that precluded
Amateur Radio activities.
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