ARISS News Release No. 21-09
Dave Jordan, AA4KN
ARISS PR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ARISS Contact is Scheduled with Students at
Loudoun County Public Schools, Ashburn, Virginia, USA
February 8, 2021—Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact with astronauts. ARISS is the group that puts together special amateur radio contacts between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses on the International Space Station (ISS).
This will be a Multipoint Telebridge Contact via Amateur Radio between the ISS and students in the Loudoun County Public School system (Sterling Middle School in Ashburn, VA as lead). Students will take turns asking their questions of ISS astronaut Shannon Walker, amateur radio call sign KD5DXB, during the ARISS radio contact. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHz.
The ARISS team using call sign ON4ISS in Aartselaar, Belgium will serve at the ARISS relay amateur radio station. Each student asking a question on the ARISS radio will be conferenced in from home or social-distanced at school.
The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for February 9, 2021 at 9:44 am EST (Ashburn, VA) (14:44 UTC, 8:44 am CST, 7:44 am MST, 6:44 am PST).
Three public schools in the Loudoun County Public School system will be participating in the ARISS contact: Sterling Middle School (host school) (1,098 students, grades 6-8), Guilford Elementary School (580 students, grades PreK-5), and Sterling Elementary School (475 students, grades PreK-5). Their STEM curricula include classes in Coding, Robotics, Science, and Math. Specifically, 6th grade students learn about Astronomy and have been eagerly following various developments at NASA, including the Artemis Mission. The 6th grade class had participated in a successful, medium-altitude balloon launch sponsored by one of the school’s STEM partners, the Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The students learned how to track the balloon’s amateur radio payload up the East Coast to Newfoundland. The other STEM partners include, the Loudoun Amateur Radio Group and Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club. Members of these ham radio groups provide presentations to students about radio communication, antennas, satellite tracking, and radio theory of operation. Sterling Middle School allows students to participate in project-based learning (PBL), and prior to the ARISS contact, all students have participated in cross-curricular STEM PBL with a common driving question, “How can humans safely live on Mars?”
View the live stream of the upcoming ARISS radio contact at: https://youtu.be/qVhBweqjCo4
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As time allows, students will ask these questions:
1. What kind of training do you have to complete to become an astronaut?
2. How do astronauts stay healthy in space?
3. What made you want to become an astronaut?
4. What is your daily routine like?
5. Do the sun, stars, sunrises and sunsets look different from the ISS compared to Earth?
6. How does your “ship” get you back down to Earth?
7. What is the weirdest thing that has happened to you in space?
8. How do you feel emotionally and physically while in the rocket on your way to the ISS and on your way back?
9. What was your reaction when you found out you were chosen to go to the ISS?
10. When you return to Earth, how long does it take for you to be able to walk again? Do you experience any other side effects of being in zero gravity for extended time?
11. How do you eat and drink in space without spilling and damaging your equipment?
12. What do you like to do for fun in space?
13. Are you able to bring your phones and other personal items with you to the ISS?
14. When you come back to Earth, what will be your first meal?
15. What do astronauts do if you fall sick in space?
16. How does it feel to be inside the ISS all the time? Does the environment (temperature, humidity) inside the ISS fluctuate?
17. If you weren’t an astronaut, what job would you have?
18. How does it feel to experience 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day?
19. How do you train to be in low gravity places?
20. What do you eat while in space? What is your favorite food?
ARISS – Celebrating 20 Years of Amateur Radio Continuous Operations on the ISS
About ARISS:
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the ISS National Lab-Space Station Explorers, and NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program. The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org
Media Contact:
Dave Jordan, AA4KN
ARISS PR
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