ARISS News Release                                                                                                    No.21-56

Dave Jordan, AA4KN

ARISS PR

aa4kn@amsat.org

FORIMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARISSContact is Scheduled with Students at

Tarwater Elementary School, Chandler, AZ, USA

October24, 2021—Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has receivedschedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact with astronauts. ARISS is thegroup that puts together special amateur radio contacts between students aroundthe 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 fromTarwater Elementary School, Chandler, AZ. Students will take turns asking theirquestions of ISS Astronaut Shane Kimbrough, amateur radio call sign KE5HOD, duringthe ARISS radio contact. Appropriate local Covid-19 protocols areadhered to as applicable for each ARISS contact. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHZ andmay be heard by listeners that are within the ISS-footprint that alsoencompasses the radio telebridge station.

Amateur radio operators using the club call sign W7MRF(NXP Amateur Radio Club) in Chandler, AZ will serve as the relay amateur radiostation for this ARISS contact.

TheARISS radio contact is scheduled for October 27, 2021 at 11:31 am MST (Chandler,AZ) (18:31UTC, 14:31 pm EDT, 13:31 pm CDT,12:31 pm MDT, 11:31 am PDT).

TarwaterElementary School is a Pre-K through sixth grade (ages 4 – 12 years) school inChandler, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix), and is part of the Chandler UnifiedSchool District. The school serves about 827 students that come from in andaround the Phoenix metropolitan area. Their fifth-grade curriculum emphasized space andspace exploration topics. And while the fifth-grade students will be the focusof the ARISS project, all students will be included in the audience during thecontact. The school’s STEM Lab opened in 2017 and has become a hub for allgrade levels to experience hands-on learning. The school has prepared for theARISS contact by incorporating various NASA and amateur radio content intotheir STEM lab activities. These activities included various scienceexperiments that allowed students to investigate/explore the nature andproperties of radio waves. Members of the Chandler Amateur Radio Club have alsopresented to the students and demonstrated real-world application of radio principles.In the days leading up the ARISS radio contact, all students have been engagedin tracking and researching the ISS as well as the astronauts on board.  The questions students will ask weregenerated based upon their yearlong learning and research of space and theISS.

Viewthe live stream of the upcoming ARISS radio contact at  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPilOdNyB3F9NG8F8TTK_Bw.

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Astime allows, students will ask these questions:

1.What kind of research are you doing on the Space Station?

2.Are your dreams different in space compared to dreams on Earth?

3.What is the most interesting or challenging thing that you have done on theISS?

4.What do you miss most about being home?

5.Where does the oxygen that you breathe come from?

6.What type of personal items do you bring with you?

7.Which do you like better, regular ice cream or space ice cream?

8.How do light and sound travel in space?

9.How do you know what day it is on the space station?

10.How does it feel when you come down from space? Do you feel dizzy?

11.What happens if you encounter space junk or meteoroids? What are theprocedures?

12.Do plants grow taller than usual in microgravity?

13.How often do you have to fix things at the International Space Station?

14.What is the hardest part of your job?

ARISS– Celebrating 20 Years of Amateur Radio Continuous Operations on the ISS

About ARISS:

Amateur Radio on the InternationalSpace Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radiosocieties and the space agencies that support the International Space Station(ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur SatelliteCorporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the ISS NationalLab-Space Station Explorers, and NASA’s Space communications and Navigationprogram. The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science,technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics topics. ARISS does this byorganizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard theISS and students. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators,parents, and communities take part in hands-on learning activities tied tospace, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org

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MediaContact:

DaveJordan, AA4KN

ARISSPR

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