Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Status Report January 18, 2010

1. Upcoming School Contacts

An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact has been scheduled for Minato Junior High School in Hachinohe, Aomori, Japan on Friday, January 22 at 09:24 UTC. Students are learning about the goals of the ISS as well as radio communications and are studying for their amateur radio licenses.

Morioka Children's Museum of Science in Morioka, Iwate, Japan has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, KD5TVP on Thursday, January 28 at 06:53 UTC. The youth are currently learning about the ISS, satellite orbits and amateur radio. The contact is expected to be conducted in Japanese.

2. Commander Jeffrey Williams and Taiwanese Youth Speak via ARISS Contact

On Monday, January 11, Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams, KD5TVQ participated in an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact with students attending Humanity Primary and Junior High School (HPJHS), the first charter school in Taiwan. Joining in the contact were students from the Technology and Science Institute of Northern Taiwan's Department of Computer and Communication Engineering. Six hundred guests attended the event, which was sponsored by the Chinese Taipei Amateur Radio League (CTARL), and listened as Williams answered 15 questions about life in space. Media coverage included six television stations and five newspapers.

3. Cosmonauts Participate in Two ARISS Contacts with Kursk University

On Saturday, January 16, cosmonauts Maksim Suraev and Oleg Kotov both participated in two Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) sessions with students and faculty of the Kursk State Technical University. The sessions were held on successive ISS passes.

4. Astronaut Training Status

JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, KE5DAW received Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) basic operations training as well as an ARISS program overview on January 13. Furukawa is training as an Expedition 28 crew member which is planned to launch in May 2011.

Two Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) simulated contacts are planned with astronauts Doug Wheelock, KF5BOC and Shannon Walker, KD5DXB on Thursday, January 21. Wheelock and Walker will answer questions posed by students at the Manhattan Challenger Learning Center, New York, New York and the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska, Kenai, Alaska, respectively. Both astronauts are slated to fly with Expedition 24 in May 2010.

5. ARISS Audio in Podcast

On the NASA Do-It-Yourself Podcast Web site is an item about using Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contacts to record unique audio for use in a student built podcast. The blog provides additional information via links to the Teaching From Space ARISS Web page as well as the DIY Podcast Homepage. See: http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/diyPodcastBlog

6. ARRL Articles on Record Number of ARISS Contacts

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) ran a Web story on the record number of Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contacts held during 2009. ARISS delegate Rosalie White noted in the article that by year's end, there was an increased interest in ARISS among U.S. schools as indicated by educators' queries and the increase in U.S. ARISS applications submitted. To view the article, go to: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2010/01/12/11285/?nc=1

The story also ran in the ARRL Letter. See: http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/index.html?issue=2010-01-14#toc04

There are approximately 100,000 regular readers of the ARRL Web site and 77,000 read the ARRL Letter.