June 26: Students from French schools in three isolated villages engaged together in an ARISS radio contact with Thomas Pesquet, who answered 18 student questions. Schools were: Ecole de Bellême in Bellême, Pôle scolaire Igé/Le Gué de la Chaine in Belforêt en Perche and Ecole de Nocé in Perche en Nocé. Students were social-distanced at school or conferenced in from home. About 125 people were on site along with 75 students and teachers. The contact was livestreamed; within four days’ time, 1,733 people had viewed it. The URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK1lhT2VcSY. Media covering the event included Regional Newspaper Ouest-France, area FM station Radio-Intensité and Regional TV France-3.
May 24: The ARISS team received photos and metrics for the About Gagarin From Space event conducted with students of the House of Technical Creativity in Svetly in Saratov, Russia. Instructors assisted 20 youths in making radio contact with the ISS while parents and administrators watched. Pyotr Dubrov supported the ARISS contact tied to the learning event.
June 17: Two French schools, the Collège Albert Camus in La Norville and the Université Paris-Saclay in Saint-Aubin, co-hosted an ARISS radio contact. Students talked with Thomas Pesquet who answered 19 questions. The radio contact was preceded by a three-hour special event moderated by the well-known dynamic French journalist and TV science presenter, Fred Courant. The audience of 450, mostly students, sat in an auditorium following area COVID guidelines. The show highlighted Thomas Pesquet’s life and background, and radio amateurs’ activities in an exciting way with a lot of multimedia; the audience responded enthusiastically. Three YouTube videos were offered for viewers and results showed viewer counts of 28,000 within 24 hours, and 42,000 within a week! Additionally, national BFM-TV and regional TV France 3 covered the radio contact as did regional newspaper, LeParisien.
June 21- 26: ARISS SSTV (slow scan TV) sessions are broadly popular with worldwide space enthusiasts, educators, students, and radio experimenters who download images transmitted from the ARISS radio by the ISS crew. For June, ARISS-International team members planned and prepared a 5-day SSTV session featuring 12 images of amateur radio operations on the International Space Station, Mir, and Space Shuttle. 2,770 participants posted 11,776 of their downloaded images at the online ARISS SSTV Gallery for public viewing (see https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/). Many then applied to receive a special ARISS certificate.
June 22 – 25: The ARISS-International working group held its 2021 annual meeting virtually and 37 attended or listened to recorded sessions. Participants from 14 states and 8 countries saw presentations and got into lively discussions on future strategies, current and future education projects, on-orbit and future hardware, ongoing and new operations, Lunar Gateway, commercial space opportunities, and more. Team members from the US totalled 19.
June 14: Following a spring ARISS radio contact, Estes Park Elementary School teachers and students told the ham club members who aided with their ARISS contact that they wanted to know more about amateur radio communications and its related technology. The ARISS Mentor has learned that the Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club set up a June class for teachers and students to experiment with ham radio activities, practice their radio communications skills, and learn material for the ham radio license test. The following people passed their FCC radio exams: five students, an elementary teacher, a middle school teacher, an IT staffer, and an adjunct educator. The teachers will work together on elementary and middle school STEM classes this fall.
June 21: ARISS volunteer Ruth Willet graduated summa cum laude from Kettering University with a double major in engineering physics and mechanical engineering and a minor in acoustics. She garnered Kettering’s President’s Medal for scholarship, leadership, and community involvement. Besides being an ARISS volunteer, she is co-host of the ARRL video produced for ARISS that depicts much about the program; the video is played at nearly all US ARISS school contacts.
June 22: ARISS volunteer and educator Micol Ivancic learned she was selected to attend the ESA Teach with Space conference in July. Educators had to submit a classroom activity or project they did with their students. Ivancic provided a video of her school’s ARISS contact and a description of ARISS. The conference serves primary and secondary teachers and programs are designed to provide activities and online tools related to space themes and STEM learning. Ivanic said, “I am excited! At the conference, some submitted projects will be highlighted.”
ARISS Social Media
Facebook – June 2021
Twitter: On June 30, 2021, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 14966, a gain of nearly 2% over May.
Instagram: As of June 30, 2021, Instagram Followers now total 337.
YouTube: As of June 30, 2021, YouTube subscribers topped 1,521.
ARISS Web Unique Pageviews: 181,209 in June, a spike due to posting details on an upcoming ARISS SSTV session
Top performing Tweet in June
17.6K Impressions
Highest Facebook Reach in June
12,096 People Reached, 845 Engagements
Upcoming Events
Details on the next events will be available soon.