Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Status Report

August 6, 2012

1. Upcoming School Contact

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for the Canada Science and Technology Museum Summer Day Camps on Thursday, August 9 at 18:39 UTC via station IK1SLD in Italy. The museum has run science camps for children in the Ottawa area for over 12 years. The summer of 2012 will see five concurrent camps for 125 children ages 6-12 for seven weeks of the summer. Each of the five camps has a different theme incorporating various aspects of science, technology and engineering and all will participate in the ISS link-up. Other activities will include launching a space balloon, building and programming robots, cryogenic demonstrations, launching water rockets and using robotic arms.

2. Space Jam Contact Successful

Scouts attending Space Jam 6, which was held at the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum in Rantoul, Illinois, participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with ISS astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, KE5DNI on Sunday, August 5. Hoshide was able to answer 22 space-related questions posed by the scouts before losing the radio connection. Space Jam focused on "The History of Aviation" this year and offered lessons on Space Exploration, Radio, Aviation, Electronics and Robotics among other STEM topics. Approximately 1000 scouts, leaders and parents turned out for Space Jam 6 this year.

3. Amateur Radio Newsline Covers ARISS

The August 3 Amateur Radio Newsline report #1825 carried two news items concerning the ARISS program. The first item covers the new Ericsson which is slated to be launched to the ISS in November and the second is about Frank Bauer returning to his leadership role at AMSAT. To view "Ham Radio in Space: New 2 Meter Radio to Launch to the ISS" and "Names in the News: KA3HDO Returns to AMSAT as VP of Human Spaceflight," see: http://www.arnewsline.org/storage/scripts/nsln1825.txt