Experiment Ten'-Mayak

Objective:

Study of USH-radio signal transmit/receive conditions in the mode of onboard radio beacon in the ISS RS using world-wide ham radio network.
Determining characteristics of radio Signals retransmitted through onboard transceiver, their quality and spatial distribution.
Assessment of disturbing actions, such as re-reflection, shading caused by structural elements and value of the ISS elevation angle.

Tasks:

Generation of onboard radio beacon probing pulses as time marks to ground receiving network (including ham radio receivers of USW) and transmission of the measurement results throughout Internet network.
Check of the concept of forced radio silence in the mode of short-packet generation by radio communication Protocol AX25.
Determining of ISS structural members effect on onboard antenna directional pattern (DP) in flight conditions.
Determining zones of DP radio shadowing zones by the station structural members depending upon its spatial orientation.
Assessment of ground receiving network non-uniform sensitivity on accuracy in spatial-time measurements.
Determining of ground receiving network radio visible configurations depending upon an angle of elevation and light-shadow situation along the flight course.

Science Hardware Used:

Ham packet radio system including:
- transceiver of USW;
- antenna-feeder device (4 pieces);
- power supply unit (2 pieces);
- control computer RSC 2.
dedicated software monitoring generation of probing pulses in onboard transceiver in radio beacon mode;

Ground segment:

ground receiving network of ham radio packet communication to record probing pulses of onboard radio beacon;
Center for Scientific Data Acquisition and Processing (SDA&PC) based upon official Internet-server (TsNIIMASH) for control of receiving network, as well as data acquisition from its measurement points.

Experiment Results:

Files containing data on the recorded radio signals (time, place, frequency-phase characteristics) transmitted through Internet from each ground-based receiver within measurement USW network at the address of the Center for Scientific Data Acquisition and Processing.