ARISS News Release No. 24-39

Dave Jordan, AA4KN

ARISS PR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARISS Contact is Scheduled with Scouts at

Hokusetsu District Osaka Council Scout Association of Japan, Toyonaka, Japan

July 15, 2024—Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact between an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and scouts located in Toyonaka, Japan. ARISS conducts 60-100 of these special amateur radio contacts each year between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses aboard the ISS.

The Hokusetsu District is located in the northern part of Osaka Japan and has 670 Scout members in 24 Groups. Their scouts are made up of elementary school students, junior high school students, high school students, and university students with 450 scout leaders. Members of the amateur radio club in the Hokusetsu area (JJ3YDM) play an important role in mentoring these scouts in the practice of amateur radio.

This will be a direct contact via Amateur Radio allowing students to ask their questions of astronaut Mike Barratt, amateur radio call sign KD5MIJ. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHz and may be heard by listeners that are within the ISS-footprint that also encompasses the relay ground station.

The amateur radio ground station for this contact is in Toyonaka, Japan. Amateur radio operators using call sign JJ3YDM, will operate the ground station to establish and maintain the ISS connection.

The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for July 18, 2024 at 5:23:52 pm JST (Japan) (8:23:52 UTC, 4:23 am EDT, 3:23 am CDT, 2:23 am MDT, 1:23 am PDT).

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As time allows, students will ask these questions:

1. Do you have an internet connection in the ISS?

2. What made you want to become an astronaut?

3. What kind of experiments do you have?

4. Is there any experience you had as a child that was useful to be an astronaut?

5. How many hours a day do you sleep?

6. What do you do in your spare time in space?

7. Do you feel your clothes are floating?

8. Where do you land when you get back to the earth?

9. What was the most difficult training to become an astronaut?

10. Do you feel the time passing in space?

11. Do you miss the Earth?

12. What do you do when you lose something?

13. What space food do you like?

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 ISS. In the United States, sponsors are the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program (SCaN) and the ISS National Lab—Space Station Explorers. The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics topics. ARISS does this 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 take part in hands-on learning activities tied to space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see http://www.ariss.org.

Media Contact:

Dave Jordan, AA4KN

ARISS PR

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