*ARISS News Release No.24-73*

*Dave Jordan, AA4KN *

*ARISS PR*

*aa4kn@amsat.org aa4kn@amsat.org*

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

*ARISS Contact is Scheduled with Students at *

*Coastal Community School, Satellite Beach, Florida, USA*

October 28, 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 students at the Coastal Community School located in Satellite Beach, FL. 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.

Coastal Community School is located in Satellite Beach, Florida, a town on one of Florida’s east-coast barrier islands in the shadow of Kennedy Space Center and just a few blocks from Patrick Space Force Base. Founded in 2014 by Sarah Angrisani, an educator and school psychologist, Coastal Community School is a hybrid learning system in which students are in a classroom setting Tuesday through Thursday. On Mondays and Fridays they are learning at home. The school has about 150 students in pre-K through 8th grade.

This will be a direct contact via Amateur Radio allowing students to ask their questions of astronaut Sunita Williams, amateur radio call sign KD5PLB. 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 Satellite Beach, FL. Amateur radio operators using call sign KD4GPI, will operate the ground station to establish and maintain the ISS connection.

The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for October 30, 2024 at 9:42 am EDT (Florida) (13:42 UTC, 8:42 am CDT, 7:42 am MDT, 6:42 am PDT).

*_______________________________*

As time allows, students will ask these questions:

1. Do you want to go to Mars or back to the moon first?

2. What do you miss most about Earth when you are on the ISS?

3. Why is Pluto no longer considered a planet?

4. How is what you are doing today in space going to benefit me as a 2nd grader in the future?

5. What is your favorite project on the ISS?

6. What are your 3 favorite things about being in space?

7. What is the hardest thing to do in space?

8. Why did you choose to go to space?

9. Describe what it felt like to launch into space both physically and emotionally.

10. How does re-entry into the atmosphere feel different than liftoff?

11. What was the most challenging part of training to go into space?

12. Did your childhood interests motivate you to seek a space-related career?

13. I enjoy 3D printing. What kinds of things and how frequently do you 3D print on the ISS?

14. What is the scariest moment you had in space?

15. If the ISS is over Cape Canaveral during a liftoff, can you see the rocket coming at you?

16. What current experiment are you working on?

17. How many spacewalks have you done and what is your favorite part of a spacewalk?

18. What is one thing you didn’t take that you wish you would have?

19. What do you do for fun?

20. What happens when you get sick in space?

21. How is the real ISS different from what we see in the movies?

22. What do you hope to have learned when your time on the ISS is complete?

23. What is your favorite thing to eat while on the ISS?

24. Do you celebrate holidays on the ISS? If so, how?

*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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