The message (which is not "heeeeeellllllppp!") .....

Feb 6 19:20 UTC 2006

  
  
Gimmick in the Heavens: An Orbiting Spacesuit
               With Transmitter


By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: January 28, 2006

In what might resemble a horrifying moment in a science fiction 
film, astronauts aboard the International Space Station will 
toss an empty spacesuit overboard next week.

The Russian suit will carry three batteries and a ham radio 
transmitter and antenna. Amateur radio operators on Earth will 
be able to listen to its transmissions over several days until 
the batteries fail.

The space station has long had a bond with earthbound amateur radio 
operators, and there is a ham rig on the station to communicate with 
them. The idea of turning a suit into a satellite came from the 
Russians, NASA officials said.

In a few weeks, the orbit of the suit (designated SuitSat-1) will decay, 
and the suit will burn up as it falls into the atmosphere. Kwatsi 
Alibaruho, a NASA flight director who spoke yesterday at a news 
conference in Houston, said, "No part of the suit is expected to 
survive re-entry."

The suit will be released during a spacewalk on Feb. 3 in which the 
astronauts, William S. McArthur Jr. of the United States and Col. Valery 
I. Tokarev of the Russian Air Force, will also repair a moving platform 
that carries the station's robot arm.

In December, a safety device designed to cut snagged cables cut one of 
two control lines to the platform; NASA is studying why the accident 
occurred. The spacewalkers will install a bolt that will keep the second 
line from being cut until a more complete repair can be carried out.

"It's very important that we repair this," said Kirk Shireman, the deputy 
space station program manager.

Anyone with a ham radio or police scanner that picks up the FM frequency 
145.990 MHz can listen to the spacesuit's transmissions. NASA has put a 
computer program online at 

       http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/JPass/25/JPass.asp 

to help people figure out when the suit will be traveling overhead.

The suit will be unpressurized, but the astronauts have stuffed it full 
of discarded clothing so that it should retain a somewhat human shape. 
Sensors will monitor the suit's temperature and battery power, which 
will be transmitted along with a message in five languages.

The message (which is not "heeeeeellllllppp!") will include an image and 
secret words for student listeners to decipher.