An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at JSC Education, Houston, TX on 15 Nov. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 15:39 UTC. The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be a telebridge between NA1SS and VK5ZAI. The contact should be audible over portions of Australia. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English.
Ten students serving as interns and co-ops at Johnson Space Center (JSC) have been selected to ask questions of Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum during their 10 minute ARISS contact. As part of the events surrounding the upcoming contact, students and other audience members will learn more about amateur radio technology and how ARISS contacts are conducted from JSC's own ARISS expert, Kenneth Ransom. Teaching From Space (TFS), a NASA Education office, will help facilitate the event. TFS promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique
environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.
The students participating in the contact come from the Space Grant Program, the University Research Centers Program, the Undergraduate Student Research Project, and JSC's internal co-op program operated through the JSC Human Resources Department. Each of these programs provides students the opportunity to have hands-on, real-life, career-related experiences that challenge, inspire, and provide practical application that complements and expands upon the students' academic education.
Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows:
1. What lessons are we learning on the ISS that will best prepare us for
long duration spaceflight beyond low earth orbit?
2. What has been your motivation that carried you through failures and tough
times so that you could get to be where you are today?
3. What is your favorite experiment you've conducted on board the ISS?
4. What is the most unexpected situation you have encountered, that you had
not previously planned for or thought about?
5. How often do you exercise and does it affect your mood afterwards?
6. Training on Earth for life in space can only prepare you so much. Is
there anything you didn't expect upon arrival at the ISS that you
quickly figured out?
7. Having experience orbiting our planet Earth, do you believe that orbiting
around another planet should be a first step before landing a
person on the surface of it?
8. Do you encounter any problems in reference to the computer programs used
on the Space Station?
9. If you could conduct any experiment in space, with any given piece of
equipment or location, what would it be?
10. Would be beneficial/possible for a lunar version of the ISS?
Information about the upcoming ARISS contacts can be found at http://www.ariss.org/upcoming.htm#NextContact.
Next planned event(s):
TBD
ARISS is an international educational outreach program partnering the participating space agencies, NASA, Russian Space Agency, ESA, CNES, JAXA, and CSA, with the AMSAT and IARU organizations from participating countries.
ARISS offers an opportunity for students to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly with crewmembers on-board the International Space Station. Teachers, parents and communities see, first hand, how Amateur Radio and crewmembers on ISS can energize youngsters' interest in science, technology, and learning. Further information on the ARISS program is available on the website http://www.ariss.org/ (graciously hosted by the Radio Amateurs of Canada).
Thank you & 73,
David - AA4KN