ARISS News Release                                                                                                    No.   21-26

Dave Jordan, AA4KN

ARISS PR

aa4kn@amsat.org

FORIMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARISSContact is Scheduled for Students

at Green Bank ElementaryMiddle School, Green Bank, West Virginia, USA

May5, 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 direct contact via amateur radio between students at the Green BankElementary Middle School, WV and Astronaut Mark Vande Hei, amateur radio callsign KG5GNP. Students will take turns asking theirquestions. Englishis the language that will be used for this contact. Both onsite and remote access will beprovided to the student body at the time of the contact per Covid-19 guidelines.The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHZ andmay be heard by listeners who are within the ISS-footprint that alsoencompasses the radio relay ground station.

Amateur radio operators, using the call sign N8RV,will operate the ham radio ground station for this contact.

The ARISS radio contact isscheduled for May 7, 2021 at 8:35 am EDT (Green Bank, WV), 12:35 UTC, 7:35am CDT, 6:35 am MDT and 5:35 am PDT).

Green BankElementary Middle School (GBEMS) (281 students in grades k-8) is located inrural Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and will host this ARISS contact. Another350 students in the Pocahontas County High School will also attend the ARISS contactevent (in-person and remotely). GBEMS’s STEM classroom curricula are augmentedwith student club activities that include engineering, computer coding, androbotics. In preparation for the ARISS contact, the school’s science curriculumadded courses in electronics, wave physics, and communications theory. These classroomstudies and lab activities include the topics: orbital mechanics, Dopplereffects, signal tracking, sky and land coordinates, and signal processing. Studentcourses also highlight the ISS as an example of international cooperation for acommon goal and integrated this aspect into the social studies curriculumcovering the course topics: distributed project participation, agreements andtreaties, and organizational structure. In advance of the ARISS contact, theGBEMS Ham Club was formed for 6th through 8th graders. Members of the EightRivers Amateur Radio Club (ERARC) will provide equipment, technical, andoperational support for the ARISS contact, and ham radio mentoring and supportfor the school ham club. The school has also partnered with the Green Bank Observatory (GBO), an adjacent NSF research facility, which provideseducational and staff support to the school. GBO staff are also founding members of the school hamclub and, along with ERARC members, conduct curriculum-supporting youthactivities. These include antenna-building, radio direction-finding, and a high-altitudeballoon launch and tracking. Because GBEMS is located within the West VirginiaRadio Astronomy Zone, radio transmissions by the school’s ham club members mustbe coordinated with the GBO per FCC requirements through an agreement betweenthe school and the National Radio Quiet Zone office.

Thepublic is invited to watch the live stream at: https://www.facebook.com/GreenBankObservatory/live/ and https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87052256434?pwd=dUYxeFJVMFFvaHBWNnRMOG10TTZ5dz09.

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Astime allows, students will ask these questions:

1. What made you decide to become an astronaut?

2. Is the ISS heated or do you wearbulky suits because it is always cold?

3. How often do you have to replenishthe Oxygen tanks from earth?

4. Have you ever lost contact with TheBase? What are you supposed to do if that were to happen?

5. What can you see from the SpaceStation that you can’t see from Earth? Other space craft, monuments, Earthpatterns, stars?

6. If you have any downtime, what doyou do with it? (e.g., hobbies, past times, fun).

7. What are you allowed to bring to theISS and what did you choose to bring?

8. How do you solve problems with eachother if you get into arguments?

9. Does your food go to the top of yourmouth when you eat because of microgravity? Does it feel different to eat ordrink in space?

10. What do you do about trash?

11. Is it possible for an animalto be pregnant in space?

12. Has there ever been a criticalfailure? What protocols do you have in case there is a critical failure, and doyou have to do drills or practice what to do if that happens?

13. What are the emotional challengesin space?

14. How is your sleep or work scheduledifferent in space than it would be on Earth?

15. How do you get news from Earth?Were you worried about COVID affecting your support system on the ground?

ARISS – Celebrating 20 Years of Continuous Amateur Radio Operations onthe 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, sponsorsare the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio RelayLeague (ARRL), the ISS National Lab-Space Station Explorers, and NASA’s SpaceCommunications and Navigation program. The primary goal of ARISS is to promoteexploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematicstopics. ARISS does this by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radiobetween crew members aboard the ISS and students. Before and during these radiocontacts, students, educators, parents, and communities take part in hands-onlearning activities tied to space, space technologies, and amateur radio. Formore information, see www.ariss.org

MediaContact:

DaveJordan, AA4KN

ARISSPR

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