March 31: The Stone Magnet Middle School in Melbourne, FL hosted an ARISS radio contact between students and Steve Bowen; he answered 20 questions. The audience at school, students watching a livestream in classrooms, and the 71 people viewing a second livestream totaled 391. A week later, the second livestream listed 488 Views. Some visitors in the room included a school board member, a district science administrator, an educator from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, a STEM coordinator from a Daytona Beach school, and a ham operator from Vero Beach who works with a school—the latter three want their schools to write ARISS Education Proposals to possibly earn an ARISS contact. Space Coast Daily ran an item at https://spacecoastdaily.com/2023/03/stone-magnet-middle-school-students-to-speak-with-astronaut-warren-hoburg-on-the-space-station-march-31/.  A WFTV reporter from Orlando aired a story about the event.  649 students had enjoyed a STEAM-based curriculum and special sessions of hands-on math and science courses. Lessons supported by the area Platinum Coast Amateur Radio Society included radio science.

March 30-31: The ARISS-Russia team supported two ARISS contacts in two days’ time. Students at Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk engaging in the About Gagarin in Space program enjoyed a successful ARISS contact with Andrey Fedyaev. 30 people were present for the event. The other ARISS contact involved the About Gagarin in Space program also; youth from Aznakayevo in the Republic of Tatarstan, including children with disabilities, talked with Sergey Prokopyev.  

April 5: ARISS leader Dave Taylor gave a presentation via Zoom to the Montgomery Amateur Radio Club (MARC) whose members are from the Montgomery County, MD area.  His talk featured an ARISS overview and 22 MARC members tuned in.

ARISS Social Media 

ARISS’ social media leader, Jim Reed reported these major highlights for March 2023:

  • ARISS Twitter Followers surpassed 18,000!
  • An experiment on Facebook and Twitter with a short video on an ARISS contact resulted in 441 Reached (42 minutes viewed) on Facebook and 678 video views on Twitter

March Social Media Top Posts and March Total Metrics and images 

  • Top March Tweet–best handheld ham radio for space: Impressions 10,578, Interactions / Engagements 594
  • Top March Facebook Post –ARISS’ radio frequencies: Reaches / Impressions 9,691,  Engagements 339
  • Top March Instagram Post – NASA video of ARISS contact for St. Lucia & the Caribbean: Reach 203,  Interactions / Engagements 24
  • Top March Mastodon Post – ARISS’ radio frequencies: Interactions 28

ARISS Total March Social Media Metrics:

  • ARISS Twitter – Total Impressions / Views 167,245,  Interactions / Engagements 4,370  
  • ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions 75,798,  Interactions / Engagements 2,174
  • ARISS Instagram – Total Reach 3,397,  Interactions / Engagements 325
  • Mastodon – Interactions / Engagements 138
  • LinkedIn – 36 new followers,  69 Reactions
  • ARISS YouTube – Total Subscribers 1.84k

ARISS Upcoming Events

Apr 12: Students in Yekaterinburg, Russia – ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team