Author: cmejackson500

September 24: Youth at a summer camp offered by the SPDW Voortrekker Movement in Oranjeville, South Africa participated in an ARISS contact with Akihiko Hoshide. He answered 10 of the campers’ questions. Following the contact, the ground station ham radio operator answered 9 more questions from the youth. The audience totaled 500. The livestream garnered 457 viewers, and within a week’s time, viewers totaled 532. A number of media services covered the event: two newspapers, a TV station, and two radio stations. SPDW Voortrekkers sponsor several annual camps serving South Africa and Namibia youth ages 5 to 28. At this camp, lessons featured astronomy for 260 students. Area amateur radio operators came to the camp to help youth earn their Voortrekker ham radio operator badge, get on the airwaves, and take part in ham radio lessons that could help them acquire their ham licenses.

September 27: The Amur Mission Control Center at Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk, Russia invited 15 young students to come see the facility and to host them for an ARISS contact with Cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov.  Sergey Samburov, head of Russian radio amateur activities on the ISS and chief specialist of RSC Energia, took the lead in organizing the youths’ activities. ARISS-Russia sponsors the Gagarin from Space studies for students.

September 28: ARISS-Russia’s leader Sergey Samburov performed ARISS training on radio operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in the Moscow Oblast, Star City in Russia for two astronauts, Warren Hoburg and Stephen Bowen. Hoburg came to NASA in 2017; Bowen is a seasoned astronaut. Both are back-up crew members for future SpaceX flights; currently, their upcoming assignments are under discussion. 

September 27: ARISS educator Linda Nowicki was accepted as a judge for the AIAA—American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’—2021-2022 Classroom Grants program. AIAA welcomes educators’ proposals for creative STEM initiatives and projects they’d like to establish; AIAA awards funding for the top proposals.

ARISS Upcoming Events

Oct 5  Prescott Unified School District schools, Prescott AZ, ARISS contact, ARISS-US team

September 18: The Space Hardware Club at the University of Huntsville in Huntsville, AL is preparing for their ARISS contact next spring. The group’s plan was to carry out ARISS STEM activities in collaboration with nearby Buckhorn Middle School youth, with undergrads teaching middle schoolers. Recent events saw youngsters launch basic paper rockets using water pressure. First, they listened to details about rocketry and an intro to ham radio related to rocket launches and to the upcoming ARISS contact. Then undergrads guided youth in assembling their rockets and testing them and exploring more sophisticated rockets.  

September 21: Patients at Children’s National Hospital (CNH) in Washington, DC engaged in an ARISS contact with Akihiko Hoshide. He answered 16 of the kids’ questions as the ISS flew over the ARISS ground station in Italy, which relayed all radio communications. CNH staff reported over 350 K-12 patients in a bed in their rooms, listening to and viewing the ARISS contact via a CNH Zoom session. Staffers cited another 950 students, 500 parents, and 400 professionals who had the chance to watch at the hospital or its clinics and outpatient facilities. CNH coordinates the youths’ school districts with hospital teachers. It works closely with NASA and the Air and Space Museum to provide a STEAM curriculum that encourages designing, inventing, and creating. The CNH Seacrest Studio offers youth an interactive space for youth to explore radio, TV, and social media, and transmits programs to patient rooms. These young people learned about orbits, how to track orbits, communications, and ARISS ham radio transmissions between the ISS astronaut and the ARISS Italian ham operator being relayed to patients.

August 9-13: The last week-long science camp of the summer at Kopernik Observatory & Science Center in Vestal, NY (camp title: “Return to the Edge of Space”) saw six youth immersed in STEM hands-on activity tied to a high altitude balloon launch. ARISS educator Drew Deskur coached the high schoolers in researching the steps last summer’s campers took for their launch. Next the high schoolers built the payload, integrating two cameras, tracking devices, Raspberry Pi, and experiment circuitry. The group got an intro to, and learned the usefulness of, amateur radio APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) that they would use to capture the balloon’s telemetry and tracking information. They discovered that amateur radio slow scan TV from the cameras allowed them to analyze the flight path in real time.  Campers launched the balloon August 11^th, troubleshot a few mid-flight problems, and monitored flight data and constantly streaming video of the horizon and the balloon. After 10 hours, they recovered it. The next day they learned to analyze the data. The last day of camp, kids presented a program on their experiences to their parents.

September 21: ARISS educator Melissa Pore initiated a new strand for the Bishop O’Connell High School’s Global Studies Program. Pore and three fellow teachers are guiding students in this strand titled “Space Exploration, Engineering & International Cooperation.” The school’s entire 700 students and 20 teachers are engaged. This special Global Studies Program will be named on students’ graduation diplomas when they complete their senior school year. Pore plans to highlight ARISS in this strand, having students research the many examples of international cooperation required for the ARISS program and also describing her work on the National Space Council Users’ Advisory Group and the necessary cooperation among members.

September 24:  Students at the SPDW Voortrekker Movement’s youth camp in Oranjeville, South Africa were preparing for their ARISS contact. ARISS will learn more details soon.   

ARISS Social Media

Facebook August 2021

ARISS Twitter:  As of August 31, 2021, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 15,216, a 1% gain over July.
ARISS Instagram: As of August 31, 2021, Instagram Followers totaled 348, a small gain over July.
ARISS YouTube: As of August 31, 2021, YouTube subscribers totaled 1,545, a slight gain over July.

ARISS Upcoming Events

Sep 27 Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russia ARISS contact, ARISS Russia team

September 14: Mary Hare School, a residential co-ed school for deaf students in Newbury, Berkshire, England, will host an ARISS radio contact in October. This ARISS contact is believed to be the first undertaken for the hearing impaired. The 230 pupils range in age from 7 to 13 years old. Questions and answers will be translated into subtitles and sign language during the ISS’ pass. The ARISS team in the United Kingdom will set up the ham radio ground station and the Newbury & District Amateur Radio Society will lead students in ham radio experiences. A science teacher said, “It is a very exciting event—a world first for deaf pupils. I think it is very important to our pupils as it shows whatever your challenges with communication, there is no limit to what you can achieve. The sky is not the limit.”  The school posted a story on its web site about the upcoming ARISS contact and thus far, 17 news outlets have picked up the item.

September: An ARISS Proposal Webinar is being planned by ARISS-US Education Committee members for the window opening October 1 to accept the ARISS Education and Contact Proposal form from US education groups. The proposals would be considered for ARISS contacts taking place in the second half of 2022. The committee updated the ARISS Education and Contact Proposal Form along with the ARISS Proposal Guide in preparation for the webinar. 

Upcoming Events

Sep 21 Children’s National Hospital, Washington DC ARISS contact, ARISS US team

Sep 24 SPDW Voortrekker Movement, Oranjeville, S. Africa ARISS contact, ARISS Europe team

Sep 27 Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russia ARISS contact, ARISS Russia team

August: ARISS educator Drew Deskur, head of the Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, NY, planned several social-distanced summer STEM youth camps for various ages that had lessons tied to ARISS.  Youth aged 8 and 9 got to try coding, build and program robots, learn about ARISS, and engineer differing solutions to problems.  Youth studied a bit about astronomy, as well. After learning some electrical principles, circuit design and safety rules, middle-school-age youth worked with multi-meters and soldering irons to build electronic-kit projects.

September 3: ARISS thanks the NASA team for Kathryn Lueders’ (Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate) posting on LinkedIn about the ARISS program.  The ARISS team distributed a news release about the LinkedIn item and 9 e-news outlets–some national, some regional including several ARRL web sites–picked up the release for thousands to read. ARISS further amplified the LinkedIn post by including the story on the ARISS-USA web page and ARISS-International web page. A week after the NASA item was posted, LinkedIn Reactions totaled 97.

Upcoming Events

Sep 21 Children’s National Hospital, Washington DC ARISS contact, ARISS US team

Sep 24 SPDW Voortrekker Movement, Oranjeville, S. Africa ARISS contact, ARISS Europe team

August 21-22: The ARRL Southeastern Division Convention, also called Huntsville (AL) Hamfest, garnered 4,000 attendees and 3 of the ARISS team were there.  Frank Bauer, Kathy Lamont and Dave Jordan, undertook the first ARISS travel since Covid issues began. They supported an ARISS exhibit and forum. They explained the ARISS program to 290 people stopping at the booth. These visitors were drawn in by a working model of the ARISS InterOperable Radio System and the ARISS Radio Experimenters Kit being beta-tested by several US schools. ARISS volunteer Ruth Willet visited the booth and while there, became an impromptu presenter in an on-scene action video done by an ARRL staffer. He panned the ARISS radio system while Ruth glowingly described her experiences at an ARISS contact. ARRL ran convention stories the next day for its web site and The ARRL Letter (107,000 subscribers), featuring an ARISS photo and the video’s URL. In 6 days, 1,030 people viewed the video.  ARISS’s booth adjoined the ARRL and AMSAT booths (both, ARISS sponsors) making for fruitful chats.  Kathy and Frank presented at the ARISS Forum to 24 listeners; some were educators. The two gave an overview of ARISS, details on current and future ARISS STEAM education (ARISS balloon launches, ARISS Experimenters Radio Kit, new student mission control and robotics activities), and current and future on-orbit space hardware capabilities, development, and operations.          

August 26-27: The Savannah River Academy (SRA) in Grovetown, GA will sponsor an ARISS contact in late 2021. Last semester, students engaged in STEAM projects led by Rachel Samples Jones, an area research scientist and ham operator, with help from the area ham club. Fall semester has opened with SRA Parents Night and Rachel presented an ARISS program on previous and upcoming education activities. Amateur radio club members had set up an ARISS exhibit table for parents. Two SRA teachers who will help lead SRA’s ARISS project were introduced—in July they took part in ARRL’s four-day professional development workshop on wireless in the classroom. The day after SRA Parents Night, the students’ ARISS lessons began.

August 23: Students at Carl Fuhlrott Gymnasium in Wuppertal, Germany made an ARISS radio contact with Akihiko Hoshide on the ISS. He answered 17 student questions while 296 social-distanced youth and educators watched in the school’s two largest rooms—students asking questions were in one room and the livestream was shown in the other. The contact enjoyed good media coverage from: Ronsdorfer Nachrichten, Westdeutsche Zeitung, Cronenberger Woche, Cronenberger Rundschau, and Radio Wuppertal, and the latter aired live portions of the radio contact. The school’s YouTube had 165 live views and a week later, 605 views; the URL is (start at 41 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKTdcM6iWSE. A second video on student STEM activities tied to ARISS garnered 368 views. The school touts its STEM curriculum, especially the astronomy classes’ six telescopes and collaboration with Bergische Universität to train students and teachers. Extracurricular activities are radio astronomy, launching and radio tracking of high-altitude balloon flights, and an amateur radio station that has software defined radio, Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

Upcoming Events

Sep 18  Notre Dame Jogakuin Jr Sr High School, Kyoto, Japan ARISS contact  ARISS-Japan team

Sep 24  SPDW Voortrekker Movement, Oranjeville, S. Africa ARISS contact   ARISS Europe team

July 14: An ARISS radio contact was held at the Children’s University camp near Southwest State University in Kursk, Russia. The event saw a good crowd attending: 100 students, 10 instructors, and 10 others helping with or watching the action. One of those assisting was ARISS-Russia leader Sergey Samburov. He wrote, “For the best questions composed to ask the cosmonauts, the children received photos with signatures of ISS crew members.”

August 11: Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts who are part of the 1st Ono Group Hyogo Council Scout Association of Ono, Japan had an ARISS contact with Shane Kimbrough.  A troop leader reported: “There was a surprise! Akihiko Hoshide’s voice was heard, too!” Participants were masked and outdoors. Scouts took turns at the mike and Shane answered 14 of their questions. The audience totaled 119 including 30 scouts and 22 other children, 25 leaders and 42 other adults, and 2 newspaper reporters. The council’s 50 scouts range in age from those in elementary school to those at the university level, and there are 40 scout leaders. The council wrote: “This year marks the 40-year anniversary of the council’s founding. The ARISS contact is intended to help scouts develop an interest in space, science, and technology.”  The URL for a video of the event is: http://www.ariss.jp/8j3ono/8j3ono_20210811.mp4

August 11: Rosalie White gave a Zoom presentation on ARISS to the Radio Amateur Training & Planning Activity Committee, followed by a Q&A. Attending were 25 women and men who are state-level ARRL (American Radio Relay League, an ARISS sponsor) officials from 18 different states, and the head of the ARRL-ARISS Board Committee. Others will be provided with a recording. The presentation covered hardware, education, ARISS’s celebration of 20 years of Amateur Radio on the ISS, and on-the-air ARISS activities for educators, students, ham operators, shortwave listeners, and the general public.  

Upcoming Events

TBD

August 3: A student of ARISS educator Joanne Michael won an AIAA Kahn $10,000 scholarship. Joanne taught him hands-on science in kindergarten through 5th grade at Meadows Elementary in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The young man is now enrolled at Stanford University. He wrote, “I love finding out the mechanics of any device and gaining knowledge by hands-on experience. I cannot stand not knowing what lies beyond our reach in the universe. My goal is to take part in the Mars colonization plans as an engineer astronaut and help advance the astronautical-engineering world.”

August 6-7: Cosmonauts put into action the Moscow Aviation Institute’s Slow Scan TV (SSTV) session. The crew downlinked images for certain hours each day, attracting worldwide radio enthusiasts, space enthusiasts, shortwave listeners, educators, and youth. They (554 individuals) downloaded and posted 1,701 images to the ARISS SSTV Gallery at: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/

July 28: Melissa Pore gave a noon-time talk to NASA SCaN Summer Interns on STEM activities that inspire her in her teaching. These include among other things, leading students in building satellites and ARISS.

ARISS Social Media

Facebook – July 2021

Twitter: On July 31, 2021, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 15,093, a gain of nearly 1% over June.
Instagram: As of July 31, 2021, Instagram Followers now total 342.

YouTube: As of July 31, 2021, YouTube subscribers topped 1,540.

ARISS Web Unique Pageviews: 37,073 in July.

Upcoming Events

• To be re-scheduled Notre Dame Jogakuin Jr Sr H.S., Kyoto, Japan ARISS contact ARISS-Japan team
• Aug 11 1st Ono Grp Hyogo Council Scout Assn, Ono, Japan ARISS contact ARISS-Japan team

July: ARISS volunteer Fred Kemmerer gave presentations during July to five amateur radio clubs in Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, and he was guest speaker at one podcast. A total of 170 people heard him describe how he and his wife and their ham radio club (Nashua Area Radio Society) have sponsored school ARISS contacts and helped other schools who undertook an ARISS contact. His talk included details on other activities and programs his club supports to interest youth and adults in STEM. He said, “I expect to give my presentation to quite a few other clubs over the next two months.”

July 26: The Moscow Aviation Institute has begun planning for upcoming MAI-75 Slow Scan TV (SSTV) sessions. The Cosmonauts will downlink images for a period of hours on August 6 and again on the 7th. These SSTV experiment events attract a large worldwide audience of radio enthusiasts, space enthusiasts, shortwave listeners, educators, and youth. They can post images they download to the ARISS SSTV Gallery, and typically, the number of postings is close to 2,000. The link for the gallery is: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/

July 28: The ARISS team is finalizing plans for an exhibit table and an ARISS forum at the ARRL Southeastern Division Convention. This major ham radio convention is the first one scheduled for in-person attendance in two years and is for ARRL members in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Puerto Rico. The event is being held in Huntsville, AL and a large turn-out is expected.

Upcoming Events

Aug 3 Notre Dame Jogakuin Jr & Sr High School, Kyoto, Japan, ARISS contact ARISS-Japan team

Aug 11 1st Ono Grp Hyogo Council Scout Assn, Ono, Japan ARISS contact ARISS-Japan team