6th July:  I grabbed this image from the Russian Meteor M2-3 weather satellite on their VHF frequency.  This is an LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite that orbits the Earth about 450 km.  Since the Earth's gravitational pull is still rather strong at this altitude, LEO birds have to orbit fast around the Earth to generate an equal and opposite Centrifugal force that cancels out the gravity.  In fact, it only takes about 90 minutes for LEO birds to orbit one time around the Earth.

 

There are not many VHF  LEO weather satellites still operating.  The USA  NOAA-18 bird 'broke' about a month ago (after many years of good service), and their NOAA-15 bird is now experiencing technical problems.  That leaves only NOAA-19, which is still working correctly, at least with its VHF payload.  There are also the 2 Russian LEO birds Meteor M2-3 and 2-4. 

 

On 6/28/2025 at 10:48 PM, simon43 said:

This is a press release that I wrote about an event that just took place, concerning 2 of my young students in Myanmar:

 

"

Myanmar students receive their own space pictures - from space!

 

In a first for the country of Myanmar. 2 young students submitted pictures that they had drawn for a space project organized by the Russian Space and Satellite Centre in Moscow.  From a large number of pictures submitted mostly by young students throughout Russia, 2 pictures submitted by the Yangon students were chosen to be transmitted down to the Earth from the Russian satellite 'UMKA-1', orbiting about 450km above us. The pictures depicted the students' ideas of astronauts and planets in space.

 

During the period of June 28th, these images were transmitted and many enthusiasts were able to receive these pictures in countries such as Thailand, Greece and Brazil.

 

For successfully taking part in this project, the Russian Space and Satellite Centre will award the young students with special electronic certificates. Their names are Ju Ju Thaw Tar Linn (Year 4) and Kyawl Wathan Linn (Year 3A), both from the International School of Education (I.S.E.) in Yangon.

 

The project was made possible with the help of British science teacher Simon Luttrell, who runs his own educational charity in Myanmar called TeacherSimon.org, which provides assistance to young students.  Although a teacher now, Simon previously worked for many years as a space and satellite engineer in Europe, and has fostered close contacts with the space engineers in Moscow.

 

"These 2 young students should feel very proud" he says. "As far as I know, this is the first time ever that students in Myanmar have participated in an international space project.  Well done to them and their school!"

"

 

.. and here are the 2 certificates issued for the 2 lucky Burmese students 🙂