Lunar Landing. A private lander touched down on the moon Thursday but managed just a weak signal back, as flight controllers scrambled to gain better contact with the first U.S. spacecraft to reach the lunar surface in more than 50 years.

AMSAT-DL receiving telemetry from moon lander in Bochum

Despite the spotty communication, Intuitive Machines, the company that built and managed the craft, confirmed that it had landed. There was no immediate word from the company on the condition — or even the exact location — of the lander. The company ended its live webcast soon after confirming a touchdown.

The landing put the U.S. back on the surface for the first time since NASA’s famed Apollo moonwalkers.

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Microwaves. 47th Eastern VHF/UHF/Microwave Conference on April 19-21 in Windsor, CT. Details here.

CSVHFS. Registration for the 56th Annual CSVHFS Society Conference to be conducted in Cedar Rapids will be open soon.

FunCube. “After a good period of transponder activity FUNcube batteries need a short rest. We plan to switch the transponder OFF between March 3rd to 15th subject to operational conditions. The satellite will be placed in Safe mode and will still provide low power telemetry”.

ERMINAZ Mission. Launching in 2024? The proposed mission is a syndicated multi-PocketQube mission with a total of 7 PQs) under the leadership of AMSAT-Germany. The project involves several EU countries, the community of radio amateurs AMSAT-DL and AMSAT-EA (Spain), ESERO-Germany (Bochum Observatory), Libre Space Foundation (Greece) and other non-profit EU organizations or institutions.

British Amateur TV Club (BATC): “Benno PA3FBX has volunteered to run a BATC shop warehouse in the Netherlands which will ship all orders to our members in the European economic union. This means there will be no customs clearance required for these orders - this will reduce the shipping time, sometimes by several weeks, and members will not have to pay any customs duty when they receive their orders.”

Etc.