Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Status Report September 28, 2009

1. Upcoming School Contacts

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for R. T. Alderman in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on Monday, September 28 at 20:43 UTC. Educators have developed a series of assignments to reflect both the Alberta curricula and the radio contact experience. Journal entries, computer research projects, skits, and other writing assignments will be required class work in the weeks following the contact. Some teachers are also considering having students design a mural to commemorate this occasion as a companion to the already existing Robert Thirsk mural in one of the stairwells.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Pavilhão do Conhecimento - Ciência Viva in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday, October 1 at 14:20 UTC. Telebridge station ON4ISS in Belgium will provide the connection.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for the University of Liege in Liege, Belgium on Friday, October 2 at 13:09 UTC via station ON4ISS in Belgium. The university offers the only aerospace engineering education program in the French part of Belgium. In the context of the OUFTI-1 project (www.oufti.ulg.ac.be) that aims at building a CubeSat featuring the amateur radio D-STAR technology, an amateur radio club was formed at the university.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Scuola Secondaria 1° Grado "Alighieri - Trevigi" in Casale Monferrato, Prov. Alessandria, Italy on Friday, October 2 at 14:46 UTC. Preparation for the contact will motivate youth to study Science, History, Geography, Information Technology and English.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Boy Scouts of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on Saturday, October 3 at 18:07 UTC. Scouts and Cubs will participate in a "Space Program Event" which will be held in conjunction with the Scout Science Badge Award system.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Sint-Michielscollege Brasschaat vzw (SMCB) in Brasschaat, Belgium on Wednesday, October 7 at 10:20 UTC. Visits to space and science museums are among the science activities planned for the children. Guest speakers will include a representative from Verhaert Space Systems and Dirk Frimout, Belgium's first astronaut.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled with the National Planetarium in Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia on Thursday, October 8 at 09:34 UTC. The contact will occur as part of the National Space Challenge, a program that was created in an effort to instill the talents and desire towards the understanding of space in primary school aged children. Sixteen schools will participate.

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Belmont Elementary School in Langley, British Columbia, Canada on Friday, October 9 at 20:20 UTC. Students will complete projects with a "Mission Control" theme and the Langley Amateur Radio Association (L.A.R.A.) will work with the school to organize this event.

2. ARISS Contact Between De Winne and Vrij Technisch Instituut Sint-Lucas

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact took place on Tuesday, September 22. Students from Vrij Technisch Instituut Sint-Lucas in Oudenaarde, Oost - Vlaanderen, Belgium posed 20 questions to Frank De Winne, ON1DWN. An audience of 300 students and teachers were present as well as television, radio and newspaper reporters. The antennas used for the contact as well as a UPS device were constructed by the students.

3. Barratt and HMS Beagle Project Connect via ARISS

On Tuesday, September 22, the HMS Beagle Project in Parati, Brazil participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact via ground station K6DUE in Maryland. Approximately sixty students were present and watched as classmates asked ten questions of Mike Barratt, KD5MIJ. The project (which aims to rebuild the ship that carried Darwin around the world) and NASA have signed an International Space Act Agreement, with Barratt as the initiator and main connection on the NASA side of the project. The project will unite ISS astronaut photography with ocean surface water and other biological and physical samples taken by the crew of the new Beagle.

4. ARISS Contact with Cedarview Middle School

Students attending Cedarview Middle School in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada experienced an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Thursday, September 24. Astronaut Robert Thirsk, VA3CSA answered 20 questions put to him by the students. The school principal commented on the contact, "I have never seen this kind of quiet on students at a school wide event before." CTV Ottawa and other local media provided news coverage.

5. Garfield Elementary, WHEELS and ARISS Team up to Talk about Space

Garfield Elementary School students in Boise, Idaho participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Thursday, September 24 via telebridge station W6SRJ in California. Students visited the NASA Exploration Experience traveling exhibit on display at the Idaho Historical Museum to learn about space exploration and its benefits. Students were able to ask 6 questions of Astronaut Mike Barratt, KD5MIJ during the 9 minute pass. The event was well attended by youth, teachers and parents. Students were also observing the contact at the W6SRJ ground station - two were students from Santa Rosa Junior College and another student was visiting from a local K-12 school. Media coverage included three television stations and the audio was fed into the EchoLink AMSAT and JK1ZRW servers.

6. Thirsk Speaks with Japanese Students via ARISS Contact

On Saturday, September 27, students from Houya Elementary School in Nishitokyo, Japan participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact. Astronaut Robert Thirsk, VA3CSA answered 15 questions posed by the students. An audience of approximately 250 was present for the contact. News coverage was provided by two magazines and an FM radio station.

7. ISS SSTV Active

Gennady Padalka, RN3DT activated the MAI-75 experiment onboard the ISS on Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25 from approximately 1000-1600 UTC. Slow Scan Television (SSTV) images of Earth were downlinked to ground stations, including one at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI).

8. Astronaut Training Status

Astronaut Tracy Caldwell, KF5DBF was given an overview session on the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program this past week. Caldwell is scheduled to fly with Expedition 23 in April 2010.

9. ARRL QST Covers ARISS News

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) published two ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) related news items in its October 2009 issue of QST. The first is a short item regarding the Boy Scouts of America Venture Crew 272 of Hillsboro, IN, and Troop 17 from Champaign IL that hosted hundreds of scouts in July at the third annual Space Jam. The most favorite activity was talking to Astronaut Bob Thirsk, VA3CSA on the ISS. The scouts took part in two high altitude balloon launches, and worked on earning the Radio Merit scouting badges. The second item (page 20) is a short article on ARRL recognizing members of the USS Hornet, some of whom supported the NASA capsule recovery mission for Apollo 11. The USS Hornet Amateur Radio Club sponsors training for Radio Merit scouting badges, and one veteran regaled boy scouts describing his duties as shark sharpshooter during a capsule recovery mission. The ARRL monthly journal has a circulation of 150,000.

10. ARRL Article on Dayton Hamvention

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) posted a web story about an ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) team member who attended Dayton Hamvention for the first time this year. This member took in seminars by Richard Garriott and visited the AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation) ARISS-related exhibits, including the ARISSat-1 hardware. See: http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2009/09/18/11083/?nc=1

11. ARISS News on Amateur Radio Newsline

On September 25, Amateur Radio Newsline Report 1676 reported on Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) astronaut training. To view "Ham Radio in Space: Astronauts Train with Terrestrial School Contacts," see: ftp://ftp.arnewsline.org/quincy/News-A/news.txt

12. AMSAT Symposium, ARISS Ops Meeting

The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) Symposium will be held on Friday, October 9 through Sunday, October 11 at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel at the Baltimore Washington Airport in Maryland. Several ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) and ARISSat-1 presentations will be given and a demo of ARISSat-1 is planned. To view a list of these presentations, go to: http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/symposium/2009/Presentations.php

The ARISS Operations team will hold a meeting after the symposium on Sunday, October 11.