At 0132 UTC January 28, a Soyuz-U rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan carrying the Russian Progress M-09M cargo vehicle to orbit for a rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).

In addition to delivering fuel, oxygen, food and other supplies, the Progress contains the new AMSAT ARISSat-1 Amateur Radio satellite. Progress is scheduled to dock with the space station on January 30 at 0240 UTC.

ARISSat-1 will be manually jettisoned from the ISS during a spacewalk on February 16. The satellites features a new software defined transponder that will provide simultaneous 2-meter FM, CW, BPSK transmissions, as well as a Mode U/V (70 cm uplink, 2 meter downlink) transponder.

More information is available at the AMSAT-NA website and in the February issue of QST magazine.