August 10: Two ARISS SIP interns, Sruthi Sankararaman and Bryce Lanese, gave their final presentations at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. Sruthi titled hers, “SPARKI: Workshopping Amateur Radio Education Resources.” Her internship work dealt with enhancing and finalizing lessons for the ARISS Educate the Educator workshops that utilize the SPARKI kit (Space Pioneers Amateur Radio Kit Initiative). She also helped ARISS coordinate and lead a workshop held in conjunction with an educator conference at Kennedy Space Center. Bryce Lanese titled his presentation “Prototyping Educational Activities for Amateur Radio on the International Space Station.” He had plotted patterns of ARISS’s L- and S-band antennas, built satellite simulator units, and used software to process telemetry signals transmitted from the simulator units. Frank Bauer wrote compliments to the interns: “I could feel positive energy from the audience through their questions and glowing comments. Note that these came from our very important NASA leaders and sponsors. I have never experienced such excitement and enthusiasm from the audience on an intern presentation or one related to our ARISS program.“
May 5-6: The Luxembourg Space Agency in Neimënster organized a “Space Summer Festival” inviting youths of all ages, including university students, young professionals, and parents to learn about careers in space and science sectors. ARISS team member Stefan Dombrowski and six volunteers engaged hundreds of youth at a ham radio display they set up. The exhibit booth offered electronics kits the youth could assemble, a QO-100 satellite radio station (a geostationary satellite carrying a ham radio payload) kids could experiment with, and a hearing about ARISS and ham radio. Half of the youth who stopped by were university students and half were high schoolers. 150 of them soldered, assembled, and took home simple receiver kits to listen to FM broadcast stations. A number of astronauts and cosmonauts came to the festival, which was free to the general public on day two, bringing hundreds more youth and parents to the booth.
Also, Stefan and the Belgian ARISS team reported that they assisted the CanSat Belgian Teams competing at the ESA Galileo Integrated Logistics Support Centre in April in Libin-Transinne. 24 teams—150 boys and girls ages 16-18—launched CanSats. During mentoring sessions, the youth learned about ARISS and ESA STEM camps where ARISS volunteers teach. A week later, the ARISS group helped the CanSat Luxembourg Teams at the same ESA center. 12 teams totaling 75 girls and boys launched CanSats and learned about ARISS. One girl decided to attend Stefan’s ESA Campin July.
August 11-13: At the 2023 ARRL Pacific Northwest DX Convention for amateur radio operators in the US and Canada, ARRL-ARISS Committee Chair Mark Tharp set up a display table sporting ARISS’ roll-up banner, handouts, and business cards. 120 attendees came from 12 northwestern states and British Columbia, and they took home many ARISS business cards. This annual convention features programs of interest to ham radio operators who enjoy making radio contacts with hams in countries located in remote parts of the globe.
ARISS Upcoming Events
Aug 24: STEM for GIRLS, St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada – ARISS contact, ARISS-Canada Team
Aug 25: Australian Air League, Salisbury, S. Australia, Australia – ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan Team
Aug 28: Bowman Middle School, Bakersville NC – ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
Aug 31: Augusta Preparatory Day School, Augusta GA – ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team