Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Status Report April 2, 2012

1. Upcoming School Contact

St Anthony's Parish Primary School in Canberra, Australia has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Tuesday, April 3 at 08:15 UTC. This will be a telebridge contact via station VK5ZAI in Australia. The contact will be integrated into the school curriculum. For those students who have already taken the unit on space, the contact will reinforce those space concepts. For those students who have not yet learned about space, the contact will be used to spark an interest in the subject. Students will participate in a poster contest and will design their own space stations.

2. California Students Contact ISS Astronaut

The amateur radio club at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California arranged for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact for elementary school students, 4H-club members and Scouts on Tuesday, March 27. The connection was made by telebridge station AH6NM in Hawaii. Approximately 150 students were in attendance. Local news station KSBY and the Cal Poly newspaper Mustang Daily covered the event; NASA-TV replayed the contact audio on March 28. The ARISS event complemented the science fair held to get students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). To view the article, see: http://mustangdaily.net/radio-club-makes-contact-with-international-space-st...

and the news clip: http://www.ksby.com/videos/cal-poly-connects-with-outer-space/

3. Amateur Radio Newsline Covers ARISS

On March 30, Amateur Radio Newsline report #1807 ran an item on NASA's new Web site and app. The article, "The Final Frontier: NASA Announces ISSLive! App" may be found at: http://www.arnewsline.org/storage/scripts/nsln1807.txt

4. AMSAT News Service on ARISS

The AMSAT (Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation) News Service bulletin (ANS-092) posted on April 1 included a few items about ARISS. The first piece talks about the Dayton Hamvention 2012 which will be held May 18 - 20. AMSAT will have an ARISSat prototype on display and will hold sessions for those interested in becoming ARISS mentors. Also covered were the contacts held with Salem Elementary School in North Carolina and with the Swiss Air Force Base museum in Payerne. For more information, see: http://amsat.org/pipermail/ans/2012/000606.html