An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at the Ecole & Collège Jean XXIII, Pamiers, France on 30 January. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1313 UTC.
The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and F0CUQ. The contact should be audible over most of Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.
We are students of year 7, we are between 10 and 12 years old and our high school is called Jean XXIII, which is the name of the famous Pope from 1960. Our school is situated in Pamiers, in the department of the Ariège, at the foot of the Pyrenees, in the south-west of France. Pamiers counts around 15,000 inhabitants: it's the home town of the musician Gabriel FAURE. Our school has around 220 children in the primary school and 300 in the secondary school. Our school has two extra-curricular options : one's a football team and the other provides training as a fireman.
Some of us worked on space and planets last year and we should have had a radio contact with the French astronaut Léopold EYHARTS, which unfortunately didn't happen. We are very happy and pleased to have the opportunity to talk with an astronaut about his job and we thank him very much for answering our questions.
The control operator will ask as many of the following questions as time allows: 1. Is it the first time you have been in space? 2. How was your trip from the Earth to the space station? How long did it take? 3. How many astronauts are there in the shuttle? 4. How long have you been an astronaut? 5. When you were a child, did you want to be an astronaut? 6. How long do you have to stay in space? 7. How do you communicate with your family? 8. What clothes do you wear? Are your spacesuits comfortable? 9. Do you have pets? 10. Do you do any sport? 11. What happens if you are sick? Do you have medicine to treat yourself? 12. Is there a time difference in space? 13. What is the temperature outside? And in the space station? 14. How do you generate and store electricity? 15. How much time does it take you to go around the Earth? 16. What do you do with your rubbish? 17. How does your day at the station go? 18. What is life like in zero gravity? 19. Do you ever get out of the spaceship? How do you manage to do so? 20. Does the Earth look beautiful from space?
Information about the upcoming ARISS contacts can be found at http://www.ariss.org/upcoming.htm#NextContact .
Next planned event(s): 1. Humber College Institute of Technology & Higher Learning, Toronto, ON, Canada, Mon 2009-02-02 17:29 UTC 2. Pilton Bluecoat Junior School, Barnstaple, UK, Fri 2009-02-06 14:48 UTC 3. Städtisches Gymnasium Herzogenrath, Herzogenrath Germany, Sat 2009-02-07 10:32 UTC 4. College Of Agriculture, Central Agricultural Univ. (along with Maniput Univ.), Imphhal, Assam, India, via VK4KHZ Sun 2009-02-08 10:06:08 UTC
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, Kenneth - N5VHO