SuitSat-1 was in meer dan één opzicht een bijzondere radioamateursatelliet. De behuizing was een afgedankte ORLAN Space Suit waarin zich een amateurzender bevond die telemetrie en groeten van jongeren in verschillende talen uitzond. Verder werd deze satelliet vanuit het ISS met de hand gelanceerd, tijdens een ruimtewandeling.
In 2010 volgt er een tweede lacering met de hand, ditmaal van een "echte" satelliet: ARISSat-1. In het kader hiervan wordt er een wereldwijde oproep gelanceerd naar scholen om deel te nemen aan dit project:

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS INVITED TO FLY A FILE ON ARISSAT-1

3 February 2006, cosmonaut Valery IvanovichTokarev hand launched the Amateur Radio satellite SuitSat-1 from the ISS during an EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity = Spacewalk).

SuitSat-1 was a very special Amateur Radio satellite. A discarded Russian ORLAN Space Suit (in Russian a "Skafander") was equipped with an Amateur Radio transmitter, which transmitted telemetry and greetings from youngsters to the youth of the world in several languages.

In 2010, an Amateur Radio satellite will once more be hand launched from the International Space Station. It will be called ARISSat-1.

ARISSat-1 will again transmit messages recorded by students. Moreover, teachers and students are invited to fly a file aboard this amateur radio satellite.

The ARISSat-1 Team wishes to include on our new satellite a memory stick of files prepared by students. This should be a jpg or pdf of things the student has prepared such as a paper or a study done on a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) topic, a drawing of space craft or a schematic, a journal kept on a STEM topic, a story or news article about a STEM subject, a photo of the class doing a hands-on STEM activity -- that type of thing.
Having the student's work be a part of ARISSat-1 means the student is a part of the satellite project and along for the spacewalk and deployment of ARISSat-1.

Readers of this Bulletin are invited to approach teachers and students and draw their attention on this opportunity to participate directly to a space flight for the honor of being part of space activities.
Dave Jordan, AA4KN, will take delivery of these files and copy them onto a memory stick, plus make them available on the web for anyone to see. The quantity of files and the size of a file are unlimited since memory sticks provide for a very large amount of file space.

Files should be either .JPG or .PDF -- no Word documents, please. Please send files to aa4kn [at] amsat [dot] org (Dave Jordan's address).
He will look at all of them for content appropriate to students. Files can be in any language as long as an English translation is also included as a text file.

(info: ON4WF)