January 4: Scouts Victoria in Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia hosted an ARISS contact with Mark Vande Hei during the week-long Victorian Scout Jamboree.  17 of the young people’s questions were answered with 100 people reported in attendance. The contact was livestreamed. The Jamboree enabled over 4,000 scouts, venturers, rovers and leaders to enjoy outdoor excitement and fun through challenging and inclusive programs. The Radio and Electronics Team provided support for the ARISS contact and for STEM-related activities, some on amateur radio, for scouts of all ages and abilities.

December 22: Two photos featuring ISS crew members engaging in ARISS activities on board the ISS were part of the 25 photos that NASA posted online as the “Best Space Station Science Pictures of 2021.” They were featured on NASA Twitter, also. One photo showed Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi carrying out an ARISS contact with students at Hisagi Junior High School in Zushi, Japan. A second photo featured Raja Chari speaking with students from Colegio Pumahue in Chile. ARISS is very proud of being presented as part of NASA science.

January 5: The ARRL Foundation awarded ARISS-USA the funding for the first year of a new two-year education initiative called the ARISS *STAR* Keith Pugh Memoriam Project. *STAR* is short for Space Telerobotics using Amateur Radio. ARISS honored Keith, who passed away in 2019, because he was one of ARISS’s star technical mentors. *STAR* goals are to improve and sustain ARISS STEM education outcomes through robotics for USA junior- and senior-high age youth. The hands-on activities will use APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) for youth to remotely command robots on *STAR* telerobotics closed courses to be developed.       

December 11: ARISS educator Melissa Pore gave a Small Sat Talk presentation to University of Southern Maine Student Satellite developers. Her talk featured what her high school students are learning this semester, such as payload options, design approaches, and resources for CubeSat developers in high school and their teachers.

January 1: ARISS was proud to announce that the ARISS SSTV Gallery now sports just over 150,000 Slow Scan TV (SSTV) images posted by thousands of individuals. SSTV sessions on the ISS first began in 2008 and the number of enthusiastic followers continued to grow over the years. The manager of the global team thanked the dedicated volunteers for the ARISS successes, reporting that the December year-end 2021 SSTV session garnered 15,897 posted images.

ARISS Social Media for December

ARISS Facebook

December ARISS Facebook followers totaled 7,638.    
December ARISS Twitter followers were 15,866, a 2% gain over November. 
December Instagram followers grew to 390.
December YouTube subscribers totaled 1,592.

Top Performing December Facebook Post over 12 days’ time — reached 19,733 people

ARISS Upcoming Events   
Week of January 31   Lewis Center for Education Research, ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team