SuitSat Mission Ends, Russia Says

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SuitSat Mission Ends, Russia Says
A solitary, unmanned spacesuit floats away from the International Space Station (ISS) during a Feb. 3, 2006 spacewalk. It is destined to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. (Image credit: NASA/JSC.)

KOROLYOV(Interfax-AVN) - The SuitSat-1 experiment, called RadioSkaf, or Radio Sputnik,in Russian, has been successfully completed by the International Space Station(ISS) crew, project deputy director Sergei Samburov told Interfax-AVN on Sunday.

"Thelast transmission from the RadioSkaf artificial satellite was received onFebruary 18. The spacesuit,outfitted with a radio transmitter, broadcast nearly 3,500 messages to theEarth over two weeks," Samburov said.

On February3, Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and U.S. astronaut Bill McArthur jettisonedan old RussianOrlan M spacesuit, empty except for electronic equipment that attracted theattention of students and other people around the world.

The radiotransmitter broadcast recorded radio messages. The transmission was on 145.900MHz FM, in the VHF or two-meter part of the amateur radio band. Voicetransmissions included suit data, mission time, suit temperature and batteryvoltage.

SuitSat-1was sponsored by Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, aninternational working group made up of volunteers from national amateur radiosocieties.

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Interfax news Agency
Newswire Service

Interfax is a Russian non-governmental news agency and wire service based in Moscow and first established in 1989 by former employees of Radio Moskva. They cover political, economic and social events in Russia and other CIS countries in real time 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their news reporting is predominantly focused on issues concerning Europe and Asia, with reporting from key location in London, New York, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Denver, Moscow, Kyiv, Minsk and Almaty. Interfax has grown exponentially over the years and now employs nearly 1,000 journalists and produces over 1,500 stories daily.