Dr Mark Hammond N8MH

The 27th AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium will be held on the weekend of 15-16 September at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Guildford, GU2 7XZ, England close to the University of Surrey. UPDATE: For a video of the presentation see http://www.uk.amsat.org/?p=10297

Among the many notable speakers will be Dr. Mark Hammond, N8MH from North Carolina. Mark is AMSAT-VP for Educational Relations and will be giving two presentations.

The first will include updates on significant AMSAT-NA developments, including information about activities related to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) matters. He will also provide a general and technical update about the Fox family of CubeSats.

The second presentation will address the challenges presented by the current trend of justifying satellite construction and launches through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education. Specific hurdles faced by radio amateur satellite organizations will be highlighted. Progress made by AMSAT-NA through educational partnerships with the ARRL, NASA, and ARISS will be discussed.

The weekend event is open to all. The full presentation schedule is being finalised and will be published shortly but, in the meantime we can confirm that it will be a truly international event and will include:

Exclusive access to inspect  the new SSTL clean room and integration facilities at the recently opened Kepler Building. If you have visited their previous facilities at the university campus, during previous Colloquia,  you will be amazed by what is happening now.

Presentations by experts from AMSAT-SA,  AMSAT-NA and AMSAT-DL on their current spacecraft projects.

CubeSat presentations on UKube-1, STRaND-1, STRaND-2 and,  of course the  FUNcube-1  project.

We will be including an exclusive roundup of a number of new live and potential spacecraft projects that are under investigation and/or development.

Additionally a number of presentations are planned covering new communications techniques and similar futuristic topics.

Plus all  the usual networking opportunities, the gala dinner and auction/raffle, plus the opportunity to operate the sophisticated groundstation in the GB4FUN mobile demonstration module.

A Gala dinner is held on the Saturday evening along with the fund raising auction.

All accommodation will be at the Holiday Inn hotel. Rooms and Saturday’s Gala Dinner must be booked in advance in the AMSAT-UK shop here. See the information sheet here. Travel information here. Presentation schedule here.

Access to the Colloquium is via the side entrance of the hotel by the GB4FUN communications module.

Holiday Inn and GB4FUN

About Mark Hammond

Mark Hammond, N8MH, holds an Extra class license and membership in AMSAT-NA, AMSAT-UK, and ARRL. First issued the callsign KC4EBR, Mark immediately got hooked on HF digital modes and VHF packet.

The launch of the digital microsats AO-16/DO-17/WO-18/LO-19 in 1990 attracted him to satellite operations, where he has been active ever since.  The telemetry bug bit deep and hard during the golden years of AO-40, where his station faithfully collected and contributed data to the command team. In 2007 Mark was invited to become a command station for recovery attempts of AO-16, resulting in a novel configuration that enabled numerous FM/SSB QSOs around the world.

He especially enjoyed the privilege of serving on the command team for AO-51 and maintains a reasonable level of on the air activity (mostly fixed, yet sometimes portable).  By formal training Mark is a molecular biologist that has evolved into an academic administrator (a dean) at the collegiate level.  He currently serves as the AMSAT-NA Vice-President for Educational Relations, and on the Board of Directors as an alternate.