July 13: Students who took part in STEM activities that are held at Il Cielo Itinerante (ICI) spoke with Samantha Cristoforetti during an ARISS radio contact; she answered 19 questions. For the contact, the ICI had invited youth from various Italian cities to come to the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in Matera, Italy, which hosted the contact events. ICI has close ties to the ASI’s Center for Space. 200 people attended the event and 194 watched the livestream. ARISS-International Vice Chair Oliver Amend wrote that ESA Education staff appreciated the ARISS-US team who, in very early morning hours, operated the ARISS radio telebridge station at Goddard Space Flight Center to support the contact. He added, “This was an important event for the ARISS-Europe team because of its collaboration with ESA Education.” ICI, an Italian non-profit association, was established with the goal of providing STEM classes to disadvantaged children ranging in age 9 to 14. ICI visits all regions of Italy to work with students where the need is greatest, setting up practical science lessons and professional telescopes for guided observations of the sky.
July 13: The 2nd Sayama Group Saitama Council Scouts Association of Japan in Saitama hosted an ARISS contact for girl scouts and boy scouts of various ages who spoke with Kjell Lindgren. He answered 16 different scouts’ questions. An audience of nearly 100 watched the action, including 15 scout leaders and ham radio volunteers. The YouTube garnered 99 views; the URL is (begin at 1:07 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-bWCL_xzpE. Media representatives covering the event came from a cable TV station and an area newspaper. During the day of the ARISS contact, the scout association sponsored a class on electrical topics and on earning an amateur radio license, and prior to the contact, youth participated in scout activities related to space, electricity, and amateur radio.
July-August: The Buehler Challenger & Science Center in Paramus, NJ, will host an ARISS contact in late July. The Center planned summer STEM camps for three weeks in July and early August for youth in kindergarten through high school. Activities for girls of middle school age, and boys and girls of junior high and high school age, included simulated space missions in the Center’s simulators, building and launching model rockets, learning about “barrier-breaking women in STEM,” designing and creating flying objects, and design challenges.
July 15: Students came to Ufa, Russia to participate in the 11th International Aerospace School named for test pilot and cosmonaut U.N. Sultanov. The young people studied a set of About Gagarin From Space lessons, and the highlight was an ARISS radio contact. Oleg Artemyev supported the ARISS contact; the ARISS-Russia team coordinated it.
ARISS Upcoming Events
July 19-22 ARISS-International Annual Meeting, online, full ARISS world team
July 21: Kitaogura Elementary School, Uji, Japan ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan team