August 16: Last week’s report described the Isle of Thanet online news’ feature story on eight-year-old Isabella who, with help from her father, talked via his ham radio station with Kjell Lindgren using the ARISS radio. Since then, word of her radio contact spread around the world. The BBC Southeast prepared and broadcasted a video interview of Isabella and her father, which is posted at https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChU0oenDiD6/ and also a news item at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-62563215.amp. But that’s not all. More than 20 news services ran an item or picked up the BBC’s feature, and for instance, National Public Radio re-broadcasted her comment that she wants to be a “communications specialist” for NASA when she grows up. The list below is of URLs for some of the more major outlets’ stories.
CNN.com
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/17/uk/girl-iss-amateur-radio-scn-scli-intl-gbr/index.html
KOCO News 5 – Oklahoma City, OK
https://www.koco.com/article/girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-using-ham-radio/40919892
KOVA News 4 – Tucson, AZ
https://www.kvoa.com/townnews/astronautics/8-year-old-girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-using-ham-radio/article_7ec7586a-6235-5277-963b-9dfd0e77ec06.html
The Goa Spotlight – Panjim, India
https://thegoaspotlight.com/2022/08/17/8-year-old-girl-talks-to-astronaut-using-dads-ham-radio/?quad_cc
Community 99-News Around You, WordPress site
https://community99.com/8-year-old-girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-via-ham-radio/
Metro 50 – the UK
https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/18/girl-8-makes-contact-with-iss-using-dads-ham-radio-and-gets-a-response-17207079/
KAKE – Wichita, KS
https://www.kake.com/story/47117133/8yearold-girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-using-ham-radio
KIRO – Seattle WA
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/my-names-isabella-8-year-old-girl-contacts-astronaut-iss-via-ham-radio/DSMIROEOMVCE5CDE6L2IPBNX5Q/
Gearrice – a tech news outlet
KTVE Fox News – for areas near the borders of Arkansas/Louisiana/Mississippi
https://www.myarklamiss.com/news/top-stories/a-few-seconds-to-remember-8-year-old-girl-contacts-astronaut-at-international-space-station-via-ham-radio/
August 18: The Cambridge Public Library and Idea Exchange in Cambridge, ON, Canada hosted a successful ARISS contact. Expect a full account about the event in next week’s report.
August 11: Cosmonaut Denis Matveev supported an ARISS contact held in the Chuvash Republic of Russia in the village of Shorshely. The village was sponsoring a festival celebrating and honoring the 60th anniversary of the first space flight by USSR pilot-cosmonaut Andrian Grigorievich Nikolaev. Participants of the radio contact included young cosmonauts of the Vostok detachment of the Shorshel Secondary School and young cosmonauts who are radio amateurs active with the children’s collective radio station Vostok-3. Chuvasia radio amateur operators set up a special ham radio event for the festival, talking over the airwaves to worldwide hams.
August 11: To the delight of many, ARISS modes on the ISS have expanded to allow operations on both Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS – digital communications) and voice repeater modes at the same time. Both types of operations are very popular within the ham community. The ARISS-US and ARISS-Russia teams worked together many weeks to secure APRS operation from the Service Module following the upmass of a second Kenwood D710GA radio. Frank Bauer stated, “Simultaneous operation of ARISS APRS and the voice repeater on ISS is transformative for ARISS and represents a key element of our ARISS 2.0 initiative, providing interactive capabilities 24/7 that inspire, engage and educate youth and lifelong learners—especially life-long learning in ham radio operations.” ARISS’s news release included Frank’s thanks to ARISS-Russia’s Sergey Samburov for working hard to help make the expanded operations happen.
August 8: NASA’s online Space Station Science Highlights for the week of August 8 carried an item on the recent ARISS radio contact hosted by Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, NY. A photo featured Bob Hines at the ARISS radio. The report described preparatory lessons on radio, electricity and space that students participated in, and how ARISS helps inspire interest in STEM-related subjects. The URL is: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/space-station-science-highlights-08aug22.
August 15: A NASA.gov writer and editor translated a recent NASA posting titled “15 Benefits of ISS” into the Spanish language and published this in the online NASA Ciencia. One part of the article featured ARISS. The URL is: https://ciencia.nasa.gov/quince-maneras-en-que-la-estaci%C3%B3n-espacial-internacional-beneficia-la-humanidad-en-la-tierra. ARISS thanks NASA for providing this to Spanish-language viewers.
ARISS Upcoming Events
Aug 24 Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital-Vanderbilt, Nashville TN ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team