ARISS News Release                                                                                                   No.   20-05

Dave Jordan, AA4KN

ARISS PR

aa4kn@amsat.org

FORIMMEDIATE RELEASE

Coming Soon!!

Mid-Altitude Balloon Race Planned for June 1

Three Space Station Explorer teams participate in anexciting

distance learning—social distanced balloon race to beheld during Pandemic

May27, 2020—ARISS educator, Joanne Michaelis an amateur radio operator with callsign KM6BWB.  Joanne is also a science coach at theWiseburn Unified School District in Los Angeles, California where she leads herstudents in several balloon launch attempts from the Los Angeles area eachyear.  With this year different becauseof the pandemic, Joanne wanted to “shake things up a bit” and give students,world-wide, a unique distance learning treat while keeping all safe during thepandemic.  So Joanne challenged TedTagami, KK6UUQ, from Magnitude.io to a mid-altitude cross-continent balloonrace and Ted accepted the challenge!  Tedplans to launch his balloon from Oakland, California.  ISS Above inventor, Liam Kennedy, KN6EQU,from Pasadena, California, got “wind” of the idea and he asked to participate,too.  All three organizations: ARISS,Magnitude.io and ISS Above are ISS National Lab Space Station Explorer (SSE)partners that work to inspire, engage, and educate students in ScienceTechnology Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) topics and to pursue STEAMcareers.

The three SSE teams plan tolaunch their balloons simultaneously on June 1st.  The winner will be the first one to cross the“Finish Line”—the Eastern Time zone. Launch time is planned for 15:00 UTC/11:00 EDT/10:00 CDT/9:00 MDT/8:00PDT.  A live video feed of the launch isplanned to start approximately 5 minutes prior to the event.

Once the balloons areairborne, students can track each balloon’s location, altitude, and temperaturevia amateur radio APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) which is fedautomatically to the aprs.fi web site. Educators and parents around the globe can excite at-home youth withthis initiative. Students can tally and track the states each balloon travelsthrough and plot altitude versus temperature, etc. Also, by researching weatherpatterns, students can make assumptions from their own data.  This could include speed variations due toweather.  They also can predict eachballoon’s flight path and when they might cross the finish line!

For more information on theballoon launch, lesson plans, and the livestream video link (when thelivestream URL is available), please go to: https://www.ariss.org/mid-altitude-balloon-race.html

Enjoy the Race!  May the best ballooner win!!

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, sponsorsare the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio RelayLeague (ARRL), the ISS National Lab and National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration ofscience, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics topics byorganizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard theISS and students. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators,parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateurradio. For more information, see www.ariss.org

MediaContact:

DaveJordan, AA4KN

ARISSPR

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