All,

15 years ago today, on December 21, 2000, students at Burbank School in Burbank Illinois, U.S.A. lined us and readied themselves for a very historic event---the first school contact with the crew on the International Space Station. ARISS mentor and radio operator Charlie Sufana, AJ9N and his team of volunteers had aptly prepared the students, teachers and the public in attendance for their historic contact. As AOS approached, Charlie began calling NA1SS. Soon, Expedition 1 Commander Bill "Shep" Shepherd, KD5CDL answered back and the students immediately began asking Shep their questions. The rest is history.

Burbank school teacher, Rita Wright, who later became KC9CDL, continues to be active in ARISS as a volunteer. Rita's 2004 AMSAT Symposium paper, "Remember, We're Pioneers!" chronicles the Burbank school's journey to the first ARISS contact and beyond. You are invited to download the paper at https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8cmd0eu9y0imsz/REMEMBER--Burbank%20School.pdf?dl =0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8cmd0eu9y0imsz/REMEMBER--Burbank%20School.pdf?dl= 0

With this historic event in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our volunteers from the ARISS operations team for their outstanding, long term support to ARISS. These folks---our mentors, telebridge operators and operations leaders---are the foundation of ARISS. They have made nearly 1000 ARISS contacts successful since Burbank, 15 years ago. Without them, the goals of ARISS: inspiration, exploration, education and experimentation, could not be achieved. Their guidance, mentoring and presentations, before, during and after the contact were crucial in achieving these goals. Thank you all!!

As the ARISS team prepares for 2016, with many schools in the queue, prepared, ready and waiting for their upcoming contacts, ARISS is gearing up for another historic event---our 1000th school contact. Wow! 1000 ARISS contacts!! To celebrate this historic event, I would ask those that know of an ARISS student that has graduated and is now in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) field to please have them share their story with us. Please pass this along to others and have them send their stories to me at ka3hdo@verizon.net or to our web master at ariss@arrl.org. We would like to compile these for our space agency customers and to share the stories with the amateur radio community.

Thanks es 73,

Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO

ARISS International Chair