July 28: Seven Challenger Learning Center (CLC) locales hosted 2022 summer camp students at these learning institutions to spark interest in STEM. Youth at these seven CLCs spoke with Bob Hines during an ARISS radio contact; he answered 18 questions. Eight-year-old Libby, according to a WABI-TV reporter in Bangor, said, “I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut and talk to one at least one time and this is a once in a lifetime experience.”  364 campers and community members watched the action at the seven sites or via the livestream. WCSH-TV of Bangor, ME, quoted Challenger Learning Center of Maine’s director Sarah Raymond-Boyan: [This is] “that spark to get them excited in science whether it’s through space or through something else” [that aids them] “just to know that it could be them up there someday.”  Staff at the Challenger Learning Center national office in Washington DC set up the livestream and posted a very nice blog so viewers could access the video.  After 7 days, 3,443 people had viewed the recording.  See: https://www.challenger.org/2022/07/29/live-conversation-with-astronaut-bob-hines-aboard-the-international-space-station/.  In addition to many kinds of STEM lessons, some CLCs invited ham radio operators to show youth different aspects of radio and communications, talk about codes, and try sending Morse code characters, which the CLC declared “a big hit!”    
CLC hosts were:

  • Buehler Challenger & Learning Center-Paramus NJ
  • Challenger Learning Center of Maine-Bangor ME
  • Challenger Learning Center-Louisville KY
  • Challenger Learning Center of Northwest Indiana, Hammond IN
  • Town of Ramapo Challenger Learning Center, Ramapo NY
  • Challenger Learning Center of Twin Tier Region, Allegany NY and
  • Challenger Learning Center at the Scobee Education Center, San Antonio College, San Antonio TX.

August 3: The Swiss Guide and Scout Movement in Bern, Switzerland hosted an ARISS contact for scouts participating in the Swiss National Scout Jamboree in the Goms Valley.  The 35,000 male and female scouts ranged in age from 7 to 28.  During the ARISS radio contact, Samantha Cristoforetti replied to 17 scouts’ questions and spoke in English, French, Italian and German.  The video is at: https://youtu.be/NvqCSISnTvU. Close to 2,000 people watched live—and in two days’ time, views of the recording skyrocketed to 6,959!  During the two-week event, youth participated in various STEM activities such as space communication technology projects, demos of HF, VHF, and UHF ham radio band activities, and making radio contacts—including Earth-Moon-Earth radio contacts—communicating with another ham operator by bouncing your radio signal off the Moon (as a passive reflector) to another ham operator.

July 30: NASA’s 2022 International Space Station Benefits for Humanity publication was released while the ARISS team was exhibiting at the ISS R & D Conference in Washington, DC. One of the articles recognized ARISS as one of the groups “Bringing Humanity Along for the Ride.”  ARISS feels very honored by this recognition.  NASA posted the article on its web site, also, along with a fast-action video summarizing the groups who “bring humanity along.” The posting is at: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/direct-link-to-space.

July 25-29: ARISS educator Gina Kwid from Eagle, ID attended The Space Age on the Space Coast professional development workshops at the Astronauts Memorial Foundation Center for Science Education in the Kennedy Visitors Center at Cape Canaveral, FL.  35 K-12 educators interacted with education specialists, historians, astronauts, and engineers. In addition to learning many things, Gina gave a talk about ARISS.  The workshops (made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks Grant Program and the National Council for History Education) are meant to help educators shape classrooms that engage students in historical inquiry of the Space Age era. Workshop sponsors wrote: [Educators came to] “the starting point for America’s exploration of the universe” to investigate “the intersection of race, gender, politics, technology, and the earth as a living system.”

July 30: The ARISS-Russia team conducted a session of lessons called “About Gagarin From Space” with 40 youth in Almetyevsk in Tatarstan, Russia. The successful contact was supported by crew member Sergei Korsakov.

ARISS Social Media

July 2022–Top ARISS Facebook Reach and Top ARISS Tweet

Facebook post on releasing (during an EVA) 10 radio satellites built by ARISS university students in Russia
Twitter post on ARISS contact at Kitaogura Elementary School in Uji, Japan

As of July 31, 2022, slight gains were made over last month on every ARISS social media platform; total followers were:  

  • ARISS Twitter—16,957
  • ARISS Facebook—7,758
  • ARISS Instagram—435
  • ARISS YouTube—1.7k

July 2022 Facebook

ARISS Upcoming Events 
Aug 8 Space Research Institute-Russian Academy of Sciences summer school, Moscow Ru  ARISS contact,  ARISS Russia Team
Aug 10 Ufa State Aviation Tech University, Ufa Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS Russia Team
Aug 10 Kopernik Observatory & Science Center, Vestal, NY  ARISS contact, ARISS US Team