September 25: Colegio Educación del Talento in Yerba Buena, Tucumán, Argentina supported an ARISS contact. A crowd of 115 students, volunteers and faculty watched youth as Andreas Mogensen answered 13 of their questions. 55 viewers tuned in to a livestream, which later garnered 100 other viewers. Prior to the contact, the online news sources La Gaceta and LaUnion published articles about the event, as did LV/12 radio and TV—the latter story is at
https://www.lv12.com.ar/colegio-educacion-del-talento/alumnos-del-colegio-educacion-del-talento-dialogaran-astronautas-n145761. LV/12 shared that the school rector said students could not believe it when they were notified of the chance to talk to an astronaut! The Radio Club of Tucuman prepared a teaser video that they posted 2 hours before the contact, which attracted a large number of viewers. The school strives to engage students in many extracurricular activities, among them a science club and multiple musical groups.
September 22: Escuela Preparatoria La Salle, a high school in Torreon Coahuila, Mexico hosted an ARISS contact with Jasmin Moghbeli, who answered 15 student questions. 400 people on hand witnessed this contact—the first one in Mexico! This school works with an elementary school, a middle school, and a university within the La Salle education group. All ages of students and guests crowded the university gym, even some from area public schools whose teachers asked to bring students “so more youth could enrich themselves from the experience.” A girl who spoke with Moghbeli said she was “honored to be able to participate and ask the astronaut a question.” The ARISS radio telebridge station team streamed their actions controlling the radios and antennas, earning 190 live views and another 94 in two days’ time. The high school and Universidad La Salle Laguna posted news stories as did El Siglo de Torreon. An area resident and ham operator worked with the school to win this ARISS contact; his Twitter and Facebook posts garnered 545 views. La Salle students engaged in STEM-related activities and a conference with subject matter experts’ talks on astronomy and technology, such as José Manuel Pardo Regueiro’s talk, “Nuclear Physics and its Applications.”
September 21: Fifty people from the South West State University and State Technical University of Gomel successfully completed an ARISS contact with Sergey Prokopyev. Mission Control-Moscow scheduled this ARISS contact and the ARISS-Russia team handled all other logistics including lessons on space.
September 25: Students at Harbor Creek School in Harborcreek, PA will get an early holiday present—a mid-December ARISS contact. Late last semester students engaged in a weather balloon launch and this week teacher Drew Mortensen and a student presented a program about it via Zoom to Livonia (MI) Amateur Radio Club. The 42 members and guests heard about all aspects of students’ activities, in particular, the young group’s (named Advanced Technologies Group) work in building all parts of the balloon launch radio payload.
September 27: Youth traveled to the Technological University of Dublin (TUD), Ireland, and enjoyed doing some prep for their upcoming ARISS contact scheduled in October. The university had invited students from “our feeder primary and secondary schools.” The teachers planned to engage youth in how plants are grown in space, fundamentals of electronic circuits, and the relevance of radio communication as a constant in day-to-day life. Their ARISS mentor Seamus McCague supported them, sharing radio communications experiences as a ham operator and showing them how ham radio will make the ARISS contact happen.
September 28: The NASA EXPRESS ran a blurb in this week’s issue about ARISS opening a new window to accept ARISS Education Proposals to compete for an ARISS contact in second-half 2024. The issue went to 60,002 subscribers and will be shared through the Office of STEM Engagement’s social media. The latter reaches 404,220 @NASASTEM X Followers, 116,289 NASA STEM Facebook Followers, and 512,148 NASA STEM Pinterest Followers. ARISS-USA Education Director Tanya Anderson sent details about the window to 274 Space Foundation International Teacher Liaisons, 100 members of two Educator Space Camp Alumni Groups, and 1,200 members of the Astronomy Teachers Group.
ARISS Upcoming Events
Oct 6: 149 Secondary School, Baku, Azerbaijan–ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
Oct 6: Technological University Dublin, Ireland–ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team