Astronauts on the International Space Station are turning an old Russian space-suit into a satellite by shoving it out the airlock with extra batteries. The suit will transmit a looped message that people with ham radios or police-band scanners can tune into, and there's prizes for people who spot the "SuitSat" from the ground.
SuitSat transmits for 30 seconds, pauses for 30 seconds, and then repeats. "This is SuitSat-1, RS0RS," the transmission begins, followed by a prerecorded greeting in five languages. The greeting contains "special words" in English, French, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish for students to record and decipher. (Awards will be given to students who do this. Scroll to the "more information" area at the end of this story for details.)
Next comes telemetry: temperature, battery power, mission elapsed time. "The telemetry is stated in plain language–in English," says Bauer. Everyone will be privy to SuitSat's condition. Bauer adds, "Suitsat 'talks' using a voice synthesizer. It's pretty amazing."
The transmission ends with a Slow Scan TV picture. Of what? "We're not telling," laughs Bauer. "It's a mystery picture." (More awards will be given to students who figure out what it is.)
Science@NASA has a utility called J-PASS that will help you find out when to get out your radio and tune into the SuitSat.
(via /.)
