The Amatuer Radio gear on the International Space Station (ISS) supports digital and SSTV modes as well as FM voice communications. The astronauts onboard periodically fire up the SSTV system and transmit images to commemorate milestones in space travel. The following is an example of receiving one of these images using our Portable Satellite Station 3.0 –

ARISS Russia recently sent SSTV images to commemorate Cosmonautics Day. The recent SSTV activation sent a sent of 12 images over a 1 week period. We were able to receive the full set using our Portable Satellite Ground Station. You can view each of the images in the gallery below.

Receiving these images is not difficult. All that is needed is a sound card connected to a radio which can receive transmissions from the ISS and the MMSSTV software to decode to images. You can read more about how to do this here.

Its a lot of fun to collect SSTV images from the ISS and we are looking forward to the next set of SSTV transmissions from the ISS.

Fred, AB1OC