ARISS Weekly Status Report – 01/09/2023 – ARISS | Amateur Radio on the International Space Station

Late December: Last fall, the faculty at Brentwood Magnet Elementary School of Engineering in Raleigh, NC developed engineering challenges for the semester that tied into the school’s upcoming ARISS contact. The 412 students focused on engineering related to space exploration and here are examples. Students experienced the engineering/design process as they created and tested prototypes of model rockets and designed parachutes to help the rockets land safely. ARISS Education Ambassador Martha Muir reported that the school’s STEM coordinator described this challenge: during the week of the Balloons Over Brentwood parade, students set up a mini-parade route in the gym, making boxes representing buildings and creating mini-floats that they attached to dash dot robots. Youth learned coding that would guide these robots in navigating the route.Also, third graders enjoyed a field trip to a planetarium “to learn about space and about where astronauts have trained.”

January 5: ARISS volunteer Jim Reed reported increased social media metrics in Q1FY23 for October through December. He stated: “ARISS social media grew by more than 1,200 followers (4.6%) over the previous quarter and generated close to 500,000 impressions of ARISS content, nearly a 5X increase.”

December 31: ARISS Director of Engineering Randy Berger built a multi-functional demo unit he refers to as an ARISS CubeSat. This educational demo item can be placed on ARISS exhibit tables at conferences and ham radio public events to aid ARISS volunteers in describing ARISS communications modes. The unit can be utilized for educational instruction in the classroom, too, to demonstrate multiple communication types, including ARISS Slow Scan TV.

ARISS Social Media

Decembers Top Posts and December’s total metrics are below.