Spartan Packet Radio Experiment

The Spartan Packet Radio Experiment (SPRE) was an Amateur Radio communications experiment that flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor's STS-72 mission as part of NASA's Spartan/OAST-Flyer spacecraft in January 1996. The experiment was intended to test the tracking of satellites via amateur packet radio (Automatic Packet Reporting System), and was designed and built by the Amateur Radio Association at the University of Maryland (W3EAX). Required GPS data for the experiment was provided by another portion of the Spartan payload. The operating mode was FM, AFSK 1200 baud packet radio, transmitted at 145.550 MHz.

Famous quotes containing the words spartan, packet, radio and/or experiment:

    But there’s another knowledge that my heart destroys
    As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy’s
    Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
    That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company;
    Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
    That I am still their servant though all are underground.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    we know our end
    A packet of worm-seed, a garden of spent tissues.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)

    The radio ... goes on early in the morning and is listened to at all hours of the day, until nine, ten and often eleven o’clock in the evening. This is certainly a sign that the grown-ups have infinite patience, but it also means that the power of absorption of their brains is pretty limited, with exceptions, of course—I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. One or two news bulletins would be ample per day! But the old geese, well—I’ve said my piece!
    Anne Frank (1929–1945)

    Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.
    Simone Weil (1909–1943)