Hi Loren and all, The announcements I post to the AMSAT-BB are a shortened version of a much bigger file.  I try not to clutter up the announcements to the AMSAT-BB too much.  I do try to keep things updated in near-real time since everything in ARISS happens very very quickly.  Within that announcement, I present the schools that have their confirmed contact times (more about that in a moment).  In the announcement you will also find a few lines that I am repeating below from my Saturday posting to address the comment about finding the questions:  The complete schedule page has been updated as of 2023-02-04 17:30 UTC. (***)

Here you will find a listing of all scheduled school contacts, and questions, other ISS related websites, IRLP and Echolink websites, and instructions for any contact that may be streamed live.

https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.rtf

https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/news/arissnews.txt (A side note, Bob Bruninga WB4APR asked me many years ago if I could also have a text file so the file could be sent through easily on a hamsat.  I keep this per his request.)

If you download one of these 2 files, then you will see the complete listing of the scheduled contact times, the school questions if I have them, and the complete list of the schools that are on our near-term scheduling queue.  Some of these schools are about 5 months away from their contact week, some are only a few days out.  Just a short word, sometimes I get the questions after the school contact has happened, I post things within 8 to 10 hours of receiving something.

The questions are also sent out a few days in advance by Dave AA4KN; another one of the ARISS mentors and PR person.  The latest one he sent is labeled ARISS News Release No. 23-04.  These releases have the questions as well as a bit more information about the school.

Please note, that ARISS does not publish the student names with the questions.  We do try to protect the students as much as possible.

Now for your question about the contact time that is listed in my announcements.  The times you usually see are to be thought of as more of a planning time for the ISS planners.  Let me explain more about the process of how a school progresses through our system.

When a school gets accepted into the ARISS program to have a scheduled contact, they are first placed into what is known as our Waiting Page (currently there are about 40 schools on this list).  These are schools that are often many months to possibly a year or 2 out from a contact.  On our Schedule Page (currently there are about 20 schools on this list) are the schools that have waited their turn for other schools to have their contact. These are the ones that we have slotted into a mutually agreed upon week to try and schedule a contact.  Think of the Schedule Page as our more near-term contacts list.  Roughly about 6 months worth of schools are on this list.  We try for 1 contact per week, sometimes that happens, sometimes we get more, sometimes we get none.

About a month to 1.5 months out from a school's contact week, the school gets presented a list of date and time options for them to prioritize or reject.  So depending on the school location and availability time, the crew schedule, and the ISS orbital mechanics; there may be 2 or 3 possibilities or maybe 7 or 8 or none (in which case we have to change the week).  These option times are generated from our ARISS orbital guru (retired NASA) who is actually working with Kep data that is not totally in the public domain.  You should think of the times as more of a placeholder/planning time for the ISS planners.  As the contact date approaches, the actual contact time starts to jell to a time that might be off from what has been published in the announcements but is using the very latest public domain Kep data.  Each school is told to make sure that they keep checking the contact time (our ARISS telebridge stations already know to do this); especially on the day of the actual contact.  The latest Kep data that they download is what is in command for the actual time.  The ISS is pretty big and thus there is drag which lowers the orbit.  So every once in awhile, the ISS gets reboosted; that changes the orbit.  And sometimes, the ISS needs to do a collision avoidance maneuver.  Hence the Kep data is changing on a daily basis.  And sometimes that change happens only a few hours before a contact. Sometimes that change is unplanned.

In my postings, I do include this line:

Note, all times are approximate.  It is recommended that you do your own orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the listed time.

I just ran the orbital track using data from Celestrak for Cache County and this is what I am getting:

Tuesday 2023-02-07  AOS 18:45:33,  LOS 18:56:14 Max elevation 32 degrees.

(I will not be able to hear the ISS during this contact time as I am in the Melbourne, FL area.)

Here is what I have posted in my latest posting:

Contact is go for: Tue 2023-02-07 18:45:54 UTC 32 deg

If you want to hear the ISS from your location, then you will need to run your own predictions using your own software (like SatPC32) or any of the on-line prediction sites.  Obviously for your own location, you will need to know your longitude, latitude, and elevation.  If you want to see the prediction from the school's or telebridge station location, then use the town data that is closest to them.  You may be off a few seconds from the school's actual location.  By the way, I will not release the actual longitude, latitude, and elevation information that the school is using.

The Cache County contact is going to be Live-streamed.  Check my postings for the latest link URLs that I have.  As always, I do sometimes get very last minute changes that I will try to post for everyone if that happens.

I hope this explains things a bit.  If you have any questions, please let me or any of the other ARISS mentors and officers know.  ARISS is an all volunteer program and many of us put in a large number of hours into the program.  With all of the duties I do for ARISS, I spend about 2 to 3 hours average every day (many times it is more like 8 to 9).  All of this for about 10 minutes of talk time with a crewmember on orbit and maybe, just maybe changing a student's thinking that this STEM/STEAM stuff might actually be sort of cool and not that nerdy.

By the way, ARISS has a booth at the Orlando Hamcation next weekend.  Stop by and say hi.

If you think this ARISS work is something you might want to be more involved with, just let us know.  We always need other behind the scenes folks.

73,

Charlie Sufana AJ9N

One of the ARISS mentors

ARISS mentor for Cache County

In a message dated 2023-02-05 09:18:17 Eastern Standard Time, amsat-bb@amsat.org writes:  Loren, I have to run but I will give you a complete explanation when I get back home.  73,Charlie AJ9NARISS Mentor for Cache County   Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device  -------- Original message --------From: "Loren M. Lang via AMSAT-BB" amsat-bb@amsat.orgDate: 2/5/23 12:50 AM (GMT-05:00)To: AMSAT BB amsat-bb@amsat.orgSubject: [AMSAT-BB] Detail on Cache district school contact Are the questions for Tuesday's ISS School contact posted somewhere or possibly a live feed? Also, I had noticed last week that the beginning of contact time as predicted on N2YO.com was about 4 minutes earlier than the ARISS bulletin had it. Now that it's a few days later, N2YO has an updated AOS time that is much closer to the time on ARISS which hasn't changed. I originally assumed that N2YO would be more accurate than the time posted on a static timeline, but now I'm wondering if ARISS has more insider details than are available from the public TLEs or if N2YO was just using an older data source. -LorenK7IW  -----------------------------------------------------------

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