The AMSAT News Service is reporting that the planned operation of the ARISSat-1 satellite from inside the International Space Station on April 12-13 was unsuccessful. The satellite was supposed to be turned on as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. According to ANS, no stations on the ground reported hearing transmissions from the satellite -- which is awaiting a hand-launch during a spacewalk this summer -- nor of any retransmissions of the satellite's downlink which had been planned on the space station's 70-centimeter ham station used for Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contacts. There's no word as yet as to what may have gone wrong.
