Sunday, October 18, 2026, opens with good news from orbit. Today's AMSAT News Service bulletin, ANS-291, reports that two student-built CubeSats are now aboard the International Space Station after launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 on October 13 as part of NASA's 35th commercial resupply mission. PROVES-Maia, from Texas State University, will relay digital messages for radio operators over UHF and S-band and evaluate intersatellite routing, while PROVES-Taygeta, from Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio College, carries an amateur radio payload, a camera that transmits downloadable orbital photos, and a student-monitored radiation sensor. Both satellites test intersatellite data routing using the open-source DRIFT protocol, and the Dragon cargo capsule that carried them arrived at the station on Thursday with more than 6,300 pounds of experiments and supplies.
ANS-291 also recaps AMSAT's 44th Annual Space Symposium in Jacksonville, where President Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, described forming a High Orbit Committee to develop missions beyond low Earth orbit, and engineers reported progress on GOLF-T and Fox-Plus. Satellite operators should also mark the next ARISS slow-scan television event: Expedition 75 Series 34 runs October 22 to 25 on 437.55 MHz in Robot 36 mode. The ISS crossband repeater remains available on 145.990 MHz up and 437.800 MHz down.
On the ground, today is the final day of two big events. Jamboree on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet, running October 16 to 18 under the theme A Peaceful and Inclusive World, wraps up after connecting millions of Scouts worldwide by radio and online, and Pacificon, the ARRL Pacific Division Convention in San Ramon, California, closes today as well. The ARRL Online Auction remains open through October 22, and the ARRL School Club Roundup runs October 19 to 23.
Contesters still have plenty to chase today. The Illinois QSO Party runs this afternoon and evening, the JARL World Wide RTTY Contest wraps up today, and the Stew Perry Topband Challenge and Worked All Germany Contest ended this morning. Tonight brings the Run for the Bacon QRP Contest and the K1USN Slow Speed Test. For DXers, S9R is now on the air from Sao Tome through October 31 with three stations on 160 through 6 meters in CW, SSB, RTTY, and FT8, with QO-100 planned, and JD1BQP is active from Ogasawara through November 2.
Space weather favors a quiet Sunday on the bands. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, in its forecast issued at 0030 UTC today, reported a greatest observed Kp of 4 over the past 24 hours but expects today's Kp to stay near or below 1.67, with the observed 10.7-centimeter solar flux at 132. Radio blackouts reaching R1 were observed over the past day, the largest tied to the October 16 flare at 1542 UTC, and forecasters give a 20 percent chance of R1 to R2 blackouts through October 20, with no S1 radiation storms expected. The calm is not expected to last: G1 minor geomagnetic storming is likely on October 20 as a positive-polarity coronal hole high-speed stream arrives, so enjoy the steady conditions while they hold.
GMRS operators in rural Arizona have new coverage to try. The Southwest Community Radio System has opened four Arizona repeaters, Heliograph 700, Guthrie 600, Alpine 725, and Nutrioso 550, to all licensed GMRS users, no membership required. They are listed on myGMRS with frequencies, tones, and coverage details; SWCRS asks users to identify with their callsign and follow its repeater use rules.