Author: cmejackson500

March 11: Students at Avoca State School in Bundaberg, QLD, Australia engaged in an ARISS contact with Mike Hopkins at the ham radio station on the ISS. The Bundaberg Amateur Radio Club (BARC) had assembled a ham station at the school and students, adhering to Queensland Covid guidelines, got to see firsthand how radio contacts work. Hopkins answered 18 questions and 459 parents and visitors were allowed to attend. The school Facebook page posted the video and got 913 viewers. Media coverage of the contact was tremendous:  two TV stations’ morning and “drive PM show” featured the ARISS contact and interviews with the school principal.  Three radio stations aired different audio interviews and a Facebook video garnering multiple play during morning news shows. A BARC member told a reporter, “This was one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever been involved in. The teachers and principal were united in their work and students displayed euphoria right after the contact was completed.” A regional online news outlet posted live interviews of students and a story on the ARISS contact. Australia Broadcast Corporation Facebook video is at: https://www.facebook.com/9NewsWideBay/videos/vb.481418035544544/159220456041479/?type=2&theater

The school serves three nearby cities and surrounding rural areas. Prior to this ARISS contact, students’ science curriculum contained a course of study on rocket propulsion. Students built and launched model rockets using a pneumatic energy source. Prior to Covid the school partnered with BARC and members invited youth to participate in a high-altitude balloon launch carrying an amateur radio repeater. 

March 15: The spring 2021 quarterly journal of the National Earth Science Teacher Association ran a peer-reviewed article in its “Today’s Technology” column. It covered a 2019 ARISS school contact with the Vermont Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, CA sponsored by the USC Young Scientists Program. The article by Rita Barakat (USC Neuroscience Graduate Program-Joint Educational Project Young Scientists Program) and Dieuwertje Kast (USC Rossier School of Education-Joint Educational Project Young Scientists Program) leads readers through the myriad tasks of hosting a contact, such as the proposal process, compiling a technical team of area ham operators, creating special curriculum providing a foundation for an ARISS contact, and so on. Photos portrayed many activities students engaged in preparing for the contact. A chart depicted how curricula aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. The article quoted teachers and students. Immediately after the contact a fourth grade teacher commented that “…one of my students turned around, looked at me and said, ‘We really talked to a real astronaut! Wow!’ The look on his face: absolutely priceless.” Another student declared she was “…inspired to learn more about space and astronauts…” as a result of the contact experience.

March 14:  A panel of educators speaking on “Makers, Youth and Ham Radio” at the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo included ARISS-US Education Committee member Melissa Pore. Panelists discussed two ideas. First, how ham radio can play an important part in K-12 education and beyond. Second, how the “Maker spirit in ham radio” is a combination that enables hands-on activities and attaining practical skills in electronics, mechanics, optics, and other high-tech fields. Pore focused on ARISS education and radio contacts. A panelist affirmed that ham radio is a lifetime public service, educational and scientific hobby, and an excellent career- and networking-booster. The panel session was to last one hour but due to the energy of the 110 attendees, was extended 15 minutes.  The presentation is available online for a few weeks for Expo registrants.

March 11: The Girl Scouts of Citrus in conjunction with SpaceKids Global submitted an ARISS Education Proposal that was chosen for hosting an upcoming ARISS contact. The mission of SpaceKids Global, a non-profit, is to inspire elementary students in STEAM education in order to empower young girls. As part of hands-on preparations for the ARISS contact, Girl Scouts of Citrus helped create a project called Making Space for Girls Challenge Program that was carried out in conjunction with the SpaceKids Global group and ProXops, a high-tech engineering and science support company with ties to the ISS National Lab. Last fall, Girl Scouts around the World engaged in this Challenge by submitting an essay, a mission patch, or an experiment idea. Selected were 21 finalists and their work will be flown in August to the ISS in a Faraday box provided by ProXops.

March 20: ARISS-US Education Committee member Joanne Michael designed the International Simultaneous Equinox Launch for balloons with pico-radio transmitters. Participants signed up from East Coast to the West Coast, Texas, Brazil, and India. More details will be in next week’s report.

March 17: Goodwood Primary School in Adelaide, South Australia, AU, had an ARISS contact, and more details will be known next week.

March 3:  ARISS-US Education Committee member Melissa Pore was part of a panel on a Women in Aviation discussion hosted by the College Park (MD) Aviation Museum.  She described how she ties together her interest in aviation and her passion for ARISS activities in her lessons for her high school engineering students and for her school’s ham radio club. An audience of 40 watched the panel discussion.

Upcoming Events

Mar 22 Oakwood School, Morgan Hill CA, school contact, ARISS-US team

Mar 24 School of Info. Tech. & Math. Sciences, Mawson Lakes AU, school contact, ARISS-Japan team

March 14:  After the March 13^th EVA, which included disconnecting the new Airbus Bartolomeo cable from the Columbus module, and re-connecting the original older ARISS cable, the following day the crew powered on the ARISS radio system. It had been set by the crew for APRS packet. A bit later, ARISS volunteer Christy Hunter was the first in the US to report making an ARISS packet radio contact, followed by other team members.  The ARISS international team is ecstatic to have the radio operational again!  Thanks goes to NASA, ESA and Airbus, the crew, ARISS team mate Sergey Samburov, and the entire international team.

February 26:  Estes Park Elementary School (EPES) in Estes Park, CO hosted an ARISS contact for students with Shannon Walker; she answered 18 questions on ISS research and other topics. The Estes Park Memorial Observatory (EPMO) on the school’s campus hosted 23 social-distanced students, teachers, media, school district officials and the principal, and retired astronaut Loren Shriver. The school’s livestream to district schools and the community reaped many live views: 750 students and 100 teachers. The assistant superintendent led off the program and then students and faculty gave short heart-felt presentations on their STEM studies and women in STEM.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnPkH2eJM-A.  The ARISS YouTube livestream garnered 650 live views; a few days later this leapt to 1,558 views. Media included: 

• Estes Trail Gazette: https://www.eptrail.com/2021/03/03/out-of-this-world-encounter-for-fifth-graders/
• Channel 9 News NBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=keuMiucgVUk
• Denver CBS News newscast and online story: https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/02/26/shannon-walker-estes-park-elementary-school-students-astronaut

Estes Park 5th graders’ social studies classes research past and present US and world explorers. The lead teacher said, “This overlaps with the science curriculum and the study of the solar system. In 2020 the 5th-grade teachers pursued a year-long space exploration unit aligning the two programs for the 80 youth. We thought the ARISS program was a perfect melding of the two curricula.” But EPES shared ARISS-related studies with the whole school district, also—1,140 students. EPES partners with the EPMO, which welcomes volunteers who lead activities on astronomy; students and the community watch online and at times can go to the dome for hands-on viewing. EPES’s STEM cross-curricular activity included an introduction to operating amateur radio equipment, exploring ham antennas and ham activities. The lead teacher said, “The Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club and Loren Shriver have been an integral part of the STEM activities. They aided students in following Space-X Expedition 64, ISS crew, and progress of the Perseverance rover. We thank our very own retired astronaut Loren Shriver for time spent and knowledge imparted to our classes and teachers leading up to this day. He has been involved with the school district for many years and always takes the time to inspire and educate our students. After today’s contact, he remarked how proud he was of our students.” 

March 1: Students at Newcastle High School in Newcastle, WY had an ARISS radio contact with Mike Hopkins and he answered 15 of their questions. It was the first ARISS contact for the state of Wyoming. The students linked in from their home computers to an ARISS radio ground station in Oregon, which relayed their audio to Hopkins at the ARISS radio. Attendance tally for the event was 125; teachers counted nearly 400 students who viewed the livestream. It is at https://youtu.be/qdQlKQK5mT4. The school offers college prep and vocational-technical training courses. The Newcastle High School Amateur Radio Club members learned how to operate ham radios and build ham antennas with curriculum tie-ins to their math and science classes. The lead teacher wrote, “We’ve been working on ARISS-related studies for 18 months and activities involved grades K-12, designed to increase awareness and interest in STEM and amateur radio, and to foster an appreciation for STEM career choices.” The school partnered with the North East Wyoming Amateur Radio Association. Media stories ran in the online News Letter Journal and on KGW TV. For the latter, the ARISS radio ground station operator was interviewed on why he enjoys helping ARISS inspire students; see: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/portland-oregon-man-connects-kids-to-international-space-station/283-ec9e7ff2-8eec-411b-a825-866ebbca6e93

March 3: An ARISS radio contact hosted by the Moldovan Peace Corps (MPC) in Chisinau in the Republic of Moldova allowed youth to talk to Mike Hopkins; he answered 13 questions. This was ARISS’s first contact for Moldova. 90 students aged 10-18 represented a consortium of educational institutions, rural schools, and libraries from 9 Moldovan villages. Students linked to the ARISS ham relay station in Portland, OR through a Zoom connection. The contact was livestreamed on Facebook by both the MPC and the Technical University of Moldova (UTM)–see: https://m.facebook.com/PeaceCorpsMoldova/ and  https://m.facebook.com/UTMoldova/.  Total Facebook viewer count was 1,204 views and within a few days, spiked to 4,900 views. Three articles written about the contact are at:

• https://diez.md/2021/03/01/elevii-din-tara-vor-putea-dialoga-in-direct-cu-astronautii-de-pe-statia-spatiala-internationala-despre-ce-licee-este-vorba/
• https://www.jurnal.md/ro/news/e863873c15e45b14/apel-intre-rm-si-statia-spatiala-internationala-elevi-si-profesori-de-la-trei-licee-vor-discuta-cu-astronautul-mike-hopkins.html
• https://utm.md/blog/2021/03/01/cnts-utm-liceeni-din-rm-vor-dialoga-in-direct-cu-astronautii-de-pe-statia-spatiala-internationala/

The MPC focuses on offering youth STEM opportunities and aiding teachers and librarians in implementing STEM curriculum activities. MPC promotes economic and civic development,

fostering local resources in rural and suburban communities. Supporting MPC student activities is the Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies within the UTM.

February 27: Frank Bauer joined Josh Tanner, the Australian filmmaker who produced the thriller Decommissioned, in a 45-minute interview set up by the American Radio Relay League, an ARISS sponsor. In Tanner’s 6-minute thriller by Perception Pictures, ARISS’s SuitSat returns in the future to haunt USS commander “Diaz,” played by Joey Vieira. Back in 2006, the ARISS team converted a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit into an amateur radio satellite. Tanner explained how he thought of the idea to develop the movie short: he happened upon an image of SuitSat and read its history. He said about the real-life SuitSat floating in space, “They had what looked like a stranded, dead astronaut floating around the Earth…and there were voices of children being transmitted from it.” Bauer described the background of the SuitSat project, telling how it was “…the initial brainchild of ARISS teammate Sergey Samburov, and the ARISS team ran with it. SuitSat-1 transmitted a voice message, ‘This is SuitSat-1 RS0RS!’, in several languages, plus telemetry and a slow-scan TV image on an 8-minute cycle as it orbited Earth.” Tanner and Bauer’s interview was very popular; Facebook and YouTube metrics are:

• Facebook 27-Mar 7 at: https://www.facebook.com/ARRL.org/posts/10158361971807408
  15,248 People Reached
  2,141 engagement
• YouTube at: https://youtu.be/sqjjZppQPWw

       2,588 Views by March 6
          103.1 watch hours

March 13: CBS News ran an online story about the day’s spacewalk.  Just above the article’s second to last picture is a sentence about the crew reconfiguring the ARISS antenna: “Hopkins also reconfigured a HAM radio antenna on the European Columbus module that failed to work correctly after a recent upgrade and both spacewalkers began work to route two ethernet cables that eventually will be part of an expanded external wi-fi network.”  The URL is:  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacewalk-nasa-astronauts-international-space-station/. MSN and another media outlet picked up the CBS story, too.

March 2: ARISS-US Education Committee member Diane Warner developed and presented a webinar hosted by the American Radio Relay League’s (ARRL) Learning Network; ARRL is a sponsor of ARISS. She described her ARISS school contact held in Fairfield, OH, on October 31, 2018 and “How ARISS Affects Schools and Communities.” Those attending the webinar included 5 educators, 2 school administrators, 2 students, and 43 adults who are interested in ARISS school contacts. The recorded webinar will be available for months to come.

March 3: The Idaho STEM Action Center (ISAC) bestowed an INDEEDS Award (Industry’s Excellent Educator Dedicated to STEM) to ARISS-US Education Committee member Gina Kwid. She teaches elementary engineering at Galileo STEM Academy in Eagle, ID, has taught in the West Ada School District for 15 years, and is heavily involved in leading extracurricular robotics programs. Her school hosted a 2019 ARISS contact and she presented talks on ARISS at the Space Exploration Educators Conference. A technical mentor wrote: “Gina is the embodiment of STEM and excellence in education.”  The yearly INDEEDS Award goes to two Idaho educators who create unique opportunities for students to experience the fun and excitement of STEM by integrating real-world experiences and hands-on activities into the classroom.  ISAC is “committed to ensuring equitable access to STEM pathways for all Idaho students, educators, and communities” and ISAC engineers “innovative opportunities for educators, students, communities, and industry to build a competitive Idaho workforce and economy through STEM and computer science education.”

March 4: The online newsletter Media INAF written by Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) ran an article titled “ARISS project; astronauts talk to schools.” The author interviewed ARISS volunteers Micol Ivancic and Claudio Ariotti on how European schools can participate in ARISS. INAF is considered the most important Italian institution conducting scientific research in astronomy and astrophysics, and funds and operates 20 research facilities. 

March 11: ARISS won an award from ISS National Lab Space Station Explorers (INL-SSE) that will now be presented each quarter. The award goes to 1 of the 44 SSE programs that carries out an exemplary job of submitting quarterly metrics. ARISS’s award is a framed mission patch that was flown on the ISS.  INL-SSE’s Samantha Thorstensen said: “ARISS does a great job with collecting metrics.”

March 11: Students from the Avoca State School in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia took part in an ARISS contact. More details will be available in next week’s report.                           

Upcoming Events

Mar 17  Goodwood Primary School, Adelaide, S. Australia, AU, school contact,  ARISS Australian team

Mar 22 Oakwood School, Morgan Hill CA, school contact, ARISS-US team

February 24: Frank Bauer and Kathy Lamont presented to the education committee members from the User Advisory Group of the National Space Council sanctioned by the White House to coordinate space.  The presentation included the following:

• in-depth review of ARISS including many of ARISS’s metrics
• the months-long STEM activities building up to each school’s radio contact
• activities beyond ones tied to ARISS contacts, i.e., ARISS Radio Experimenters Kit, and
• teachers’ quotes on ARISS’s effectiveness for improving students’ STEM interests.

Many listeners expressed great interest in ARISS, including AIAA and Eileen Collins. She was an astronaut and ham radio operator who supported Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment radio contacts prior to ARISS coming into being.

Feb 24: Students from John F. Kennedy High School in Denver, CO engaged in an ARISS radio contact with Mike Hopkins; he answered 17 of their questions. Due to COVID-19, students at home connected virtually, and the link between them and Hopkins’ radio was via an ARISS radio ground station in Oregon. A YouTube video livestreamed for the public, seen by 164 people, has now been viewed by 798 individuals; the URL is: https://youtu.be/1RgszX0npbQ.  Raytheon had funded a space lab for the school to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. The lab affords engineering students hands-on engagements tied to a curriculum applicable to space engineering related to the ISS: exploring ISS-Above cameras, amateur radio, and engineering communications. Some activities included building a solar and hydrogen fuel cell car and how this applied to the ISS, bioengineering/growing plants in space, and solar-system modeling. Students built electronic kits related to amateur radio and constructed a radio antenna so as to try radio direction-finding. The school partnered with the Rocky Mountain Ham Radio group and Cherry Creek Young Amateur Radio Club to mentor students.

Feb 19: Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, NH held an ARISS radio contact for Shannon Walker to be interviewed by students at home in 40 communities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. An ARISS Mentor in Hollis, NH transmitted the audio between Walker’s radio and students; she answered 14 questions.  Several outlets provided livestreaming to 2,022 viewers. The ARISS YouTube video is at https://youtu.be/0-Dsel4_7gM and had 642 views. Many media outlets posted reports. WMUR-TV interviewed students on Zoom and aired this on both the evening and following morning news broadcasts—see https://youtu.be/B0KtrKoTDjA. New Hampshire Public Radio’s article and audio are at https://www.nhpr.org/post/nashua-students-connect-outer-space-home#stream/0. Boston’s WCVB-TV News carried a story (https://www.wcvb.com/article/new-hampshire-students-chat-with-international-space-station-astronaut/35605567) as did the NH Union Leader and Nashua’s The Telegraph.  Student prep for the ARISS contact included an 18-month curriculum of STEM for all grades; some examples are space exploration, life in space, and the importance of the ISS research and radio communications. The school supports extracurricular STEM-related activities in student-organized clubs–astronomy, 3-D printing, robotics, and ham radio. Over the past four years, the school collaborated with the Nashua Area Radio Society (NARS) on many student STEM activities; a few examples are understanding radio communication, building kits to send Morse code messages, and launching/tracking two high-altitude balloons with ham radio payloads. Students formally presented their collected balloon data at a NARS meeting. Activities mentored by NARS inspired a number of students to earn their ham radio licenses. The STEM Club teacher was impressed with the collaboration; she said: “THIS WAS AMAZING!!! We are so impressed by the students, faculty and partners at NARS! How fortunate our students are to have had this experience. Thanks to ALL involved. We are just blown away.”

February 19: Students from Estes Park (CO) Elementary School engaged in many STEM studies in the months before their ARISS contact; details about the contact will be in next week’s report. One lesson included composing messages for thank-you cards to give to the Estes Valley Amateur Radio Club (EVARC) members who mentored students. A teacher described another lesson, done via Zoom:  “EVARC members engaged our 5th graders in an awesome Q & A about ham radio operations. The kids asked some really fantastic questions!” A few students want to get their ham radio license, and one girl said she is studying for it.   

January 23: ARISS-US Education Committee member Neil Rapp presented a forum on Youth On The Air (YOTA) and ARISS at Winterfest 2021, hosted annually by the St. Louis and Suburban Radio Club, this time, virtually. Rapp spoke about the yearly YOTA event, this year’s in July, where activities include an ARISS contact and trying out radio satellite contacts. Attending the forum were over 5,000 viewers from the US, the UK, India, Indonesia, Germany, Austria, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden.  

February 25: ARISS leaders John Kludt and Kathy Lamont led an ARISS Proposal Webinar for US educators with an interest in hosting an ARISS contact in 2021.  29 registrants participated in the introduction to ARISS.  

February 28: ARISS Volunteer and JVC Kenwood engineer Shin Aota presented a 10-minute talk at the Japanese JAIA Fair on the ARISS radio station (with its JVC Kenwood radio) in the ISS Columbus Module. The live audience totaled 458 with 3,348 viewers afterwards. The online event, sponsored by JAIA (Japan Amateur Radio Industries Association), was held near Tokyo in previous years.

March 2-3: The ARISS team has worked very closely with NASA and ESA to identify potential ARISS radio anomaly causes and resolve the radio issues observed after the January 27^th EVA.  Cabling had been installed to support commissioning the Bartolomeo platform, rerouting the cabling of the ARISS antenna to the ARISS radio system. A set of APRS tests employing three different internal cabling configurations has determined the ARISS radio system is still not operational.  Ham radio operators around the globe monitored the ARISS radio frequency for any transmission to be heard, but nothing was detected. A contingency task was approved for the March 5^th EVA to return the ARISS cabling to the original configuration prior to the January 27^th EVA, but there was not enough time for the crew to perform this task.

Social Media

Facebook – February 2021 

Twitter: As of February 28, 2021, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 14,345, a slight gain over January.

Instagram: As of February 28, 2021, Instagram followers increased to 288, an 8% gain over January.

YouTube Members: As of February 28, 2021, there are 1,102 YouTube members.

ARISS Web Unique Pageviews:  For February 1 – 28, the total of Unique Pageviews was 40,323.

Feb 13-14: Three ARISS-US Education Committee members gave presentations at the online 2021 Orlando HamCation. 

• Melissa Pore and two of her high school students presented to 110 Zoom viewers on using ARISS and amateur radio in space to enhance school science and engineering classes. Another 103 people viewed the recording.
• Alan Johnston’s presentation included two of Pore’s students and how they and she engaged with the AMSAT CubeSat simulator in class, and how other educators can. This device lets students experiment with operations and features of a typical ham radio CubeSat. Live views totaled 212. Another 211 people viewed the recording.
• Neil Rapp, who won the convention’s 2021 educator award, was vetted for his STEM education efforts and he spoke about Young Operators on The Air (YOTA) and its tie to ARISS. YOTA is a nationwide group of young hams and has been selected for an ARISS contact in 2021. Rapp reported 67 live views and 10 watching the recording afterwards.

February 13: ARISS volunteer Melissa Pore teaches engineering at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, VA and she and her students took part in a Zoom meeting hosted by the University of Southern Maine (USM). The event kicked off the formal opening of the USM CubeSat Design Competition and Pore’s students want to compete. Meeting attendees included 10 high school teachers, 10 professors, and 10 industry professionals.  Students viewed the recorded session.

February 12: ARISS recently opened a window to accept ARISS Education Proposals from education institutions interested in hosting ARISS contacts. In addition to the ARISS team distributing a news release to many media outlets about the window opening, the NASA EXPRESS newsletter received a blurb from ARISS. The blurb was accepted. NASA EXPRESS went to 50,918 subscribers and was shared through the Office of STEM Engagement’s social media tools with 299,777 @NASASTEM Twitter followers, 90,413 NASA STEM Engagement Facebook followers, and 372,820 NASA STEM Pinterest followers. This means NASA EXPRESS content will be viewed by 813,928 followers.

February 15: Rosalie White gave a talk on “The ARISS Mission” to 14 amateur radio clubs associated with Boeing companies around the US.  Boeing sponsors two main types of clubs; they are called Boeing Employees Amateur Radio Society, a general-interest ham club and Boeing Auxiliary Communications Services, focused on ham radio emergency communications. Tying in were 29 members and 3 guests who were educators.  

February 19: Students at home from Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, NH, had an ARISS radio contact with Shannon Walker. Details will be available for next week’s report.

February 24-26: Two ARISS schools in Colorado received tentative schedules (due to the NG-15 launch) for an ARISS contact—Estes Park Elementary School and JFK High School.

Upcoming Events

• Feb 19   Bishop Guertin High School, Nashua NH, ARISS contact
• Feb 24  JFK High School, Denver CO, ARISS contact  
• Feb 26 Estes Park Elementary School, Estes Park CO, ARISS contact

                  

February 9: Students at Sterling Middle School in Ashburn, VA had a successful ARISS radio contact with Shannon Walker; students were tied in from home through the ARISS ground station in Belgium. Walker answered 20 student questions as 350 viewers watched a YouTube livestream connection; it is at: https://youtu.be/qVhBweqjCo4.  Within two days, another 1,723 people had viewed the video. A recording was posted at the school district web site along with the NASA infographic about ARISS, details on students participating in a balloon launch and tracking its ham radio payload, and STEM activities that Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club members had mentored. Youth had learned coding, robotics, radio waves and communications, astronomy, STEM in 30 lessons, and were especially interested in the Artemis Mission. The school had involved students from two other area schools: Sterling Elementary School and Guilford Elementary School.

February 10: Red Hill Lutheran School in Tustin, CA sponsored an ARISS radio contact with Mike Hopkins who answered 21 questions. The school’s audience of 300 followed CDC Covid guidelines while other students were home asking questions relayed by an ARISS ground station in Oregon. The contact, livestreamed for the public, garnered 382 views and three days later, another 1,301 views. The URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhfWvzOtnQM. Minutes before the contact, a video featured students highlighting their STEAM projects done as prep for their ARISS contact—the school uses California Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards and electives are robotics, computer programming, and 3-D printing. Prior to Covid, ARISS volunteers had helped 210 students and their teachers to do ham radio contacts and experiment with Raspberry Pi.  Media hits included a story aired by Los Angeles KABC-TV and also posted on its web site, and an Orange County Register newspaper article, which is at:  https://www.ocregister.com/location/california/orange-county/tustin/  

February 5: The Ottawa Carleton Virtual Online School, one of the Ottawa Carleton District schools in Ontario, Canada hosted an ARISS radio contact with Mike Hopkins. Students at 17 district schools had been involved and one student from each school asked a question. They were conferenced in from home via a Zoom session tied to an ARISS ground station relaying their communication to the ISS. An audience of 893 viewed the contact live via a YouTube stream, and 24 hours later, another 3,565 watched. The URL is: https://youtu.be/Ery1JYmk72o. Media included pre- and post-contact stories by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper and CTV TV’s posted story and TV clip, which was carried across Canada—even in Edmonton, AB; the URL is: https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2134102&binId=1.1487308&playlistPageNum=1

A school board member wrote: “The students were entranced this morning and one of our teachers has reported that many have asked a lot of great questions about it this afternoon.”

February 3: The Bishop Guertin High School has an upcoming ARISS contact and students had generated so many good questions that not all could possibly be answered by the astronaut. Students in the STEM Club decided to help solve that problem by preparing a video to use as part of the programming on the day of the ARISS contact. In the video, they provide answers to nine questions that there would be no time to answer. Three students in the video have earned their ham radio license.  The URL is: https://vimeo.com/508990133/9f8ea41659

January 29: The Savannah River Academy in Grovetown, GA has an upcoming ARISS radio contact. The school’s Facebook page announced the contact by posting an eye-catching graphic. ARISS-US Education Committee member Martha Muir shared this quote from the school’s lead ARISS educator: “They are all very excited about their upcoming ARISS contact.”

February 9: ARISS-US leader John Kludt gave a presentation on ARISS to members of the Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society, a club in metro Atlanta, GA.  He spoke on what it took to design, develop, and build the ARISS radio station that was first operational on the ISS in September 2020 and a little about the current ISS crew operating the radio system.

February 13-14: The popular annual convention, Florida Hamcation had three speakers who are members of the ARISS-US Education Committee.  More details will be available for next week’s report.

January 21:  ARISS leaders Kathy Lamont and John Kludt led an ARISS Orientation Webinar for 31 educators and a number of ARISS educators and volunteers from around the US.  This session was for educators whose schools were selected for an ARISS contact because their ARISS Education Proposals were so excellent.  The ARISS contacts will be held between July and December 2021.

Upcoming Events

February 15: Bishop DJ O’Connell High School students of ARISS educator Melissa Pore will participate in a Zoom session hosted by the University of Southern Maine as its formal kick-off to its CubeSat Design Competition.

February 15: Rosalie White will present a Zoom talk on the ARISS mission to 14 amateur radio clubs associated with Boeing companies around the US.

February 19: Students at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, NH will hold an ARISS contact with Shannon Walker.

January 28: An ARISS radio contact for students at Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk, Russia was successful. Cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov supported the contact and first year students of the university’s space training classes asked him questions. Students’ recent activities had included downloading SSTV images downlinked by cosmonauts on the ISS in December. The ARISS contact and the downloading of SSTV images were part of the “About Gagarin from Space” program.

January 28: An ARISS student was featured in the ISS National Lab (INL) Science in Space Today, an e-newsletter going to thousands. The ARISS item was one of seven in the newsletter and highlighted a blog contributed by an ARISS student to INL’s ISS 360.  INL had asked the young lady to pen the blog on how the ARISS contact she took part in had affected her current and future STEM studies.

January 28-29: Radio enthusiasts around the world engaged in a Slow Scan TV (SSTV) event made possible by the Moscow Aviation Institute SSTV Experiment onboard the ISS. During this event, ham radio operators and space fans downloaded historical images of spacecraft and cosmonauts from the Russian space program. Throughout the event, 645 different individuals posted 1,887 images at the ARISS SSTV Gallery website for public viewing:  https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/.

February 5: A group of students at the Dal’nevostochnyy Federal’nyy Universitet (Far Eastern Federal University) in Vladivostok, Russia took part in an ARISS school contact. The university sponsors a number of space projects and this radio event was in conjunction with the “About Gagarin from Space” program. Sergey Ryzhikov supported the radio contact.  

February 4-6: Three ARISS-US Education Committee members presented at two different sessions of the Space Exploration Educators Conference (SEEC) at Space Center Houston; the conference drew over 900 attendees. Gina Kwid and Beth Bivens, educators at Galileo STEM Academy in Eagle, ID co-led a presentation on their students’ STEM activities over many months following their 2019 ARISS contact, plus information on the ARISS proposal process. The 2018 SEEC ARISS exhibit is how the two educators had learned about ARISS and one of them proclaimed that their ARISS contact was “the best, or one of the two best things” she has ever done in her teaching career. The second ARISS-related SEEC session was co-led by Melissa Pore and a Space Center Houston Scientist in Residence. They demonstrated how to build a miniature neutral buoyancy lab for a classroom, offered hands-on lessons on science and engineering concepts that relate to space and under water, how Pore got involved due to her ARISS school contact, plus how teachers can get involved in ARISS. She made guest appearances at three other SEEC sessions to talk about teacher engagement in ARISS and its 20 years in space. All SEEC video presentations will be viewable to attendees for a year.

February 2: ARISS volunteer Gordon West gave a presentation on ARISS to the student amateur radio teams and their sponsor at Sato Academy of Math & Science and McBride High School, both in Long Beach, CA. Their sponsor brings radio activities to the students who are interested in careers in medicine and engineering. West has worked with the students previously, and this time, showed them the types of STEM opportunities ARISS can provide.

February 5: An ARISS contact with Mike Hopkins took place for students from 17 Ottawa Carleton District schools in Ontario, Canada, with the Ottawa Carleton Virtual Online School as lead school. More details will be available next week.

Social Media

Facebook – January 2021

 *January’s Biggest Reach–a post about an upcoming SSTV session on crews and spacecraft–garnering a whopping 15,457 Reaches and 1,293 Engagements.

Twitter: As of January 31, 2021, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 14,207, a slight gain over December.

Instagram: As of January 31, 2021, Instagram followers increased to 267, somewhat larger than December.

YouTube Members: As of January 31, 2020, there are 820 YouTube members.

ARISS Web Unique Pageviews:  For January 1 – 31, the total of Unique Pageviews was 47,055.

Upcoming Events 

February 9: Sterling Middle School in Ashburn, VA will host an ARISS radio contact with Shannon Walker.

February 10: Students at Red Hill Lutheran in Tustin, CA are looking forward to their ARISS contact with Mike Hopkins, and will be in school following Covid guidelines. 

January 21: The Sea Road School in Kennebunk, part of Maine Regional School Unit 21, hosted a successful ARISS contact. Students from six Kennebunk area schools were at home connected online through an ARISS ham relay ground station in Italy. They enjoyed a conversation with Mike Hopkins who answered 20 questions. The schools besides Sea Road School whose students took part in the contact and space and radio activities were Kennebunk Elementary School, Kennebunkport Consolidated School, Middle School of Kennebunk, Mildred L. Day School, and Kennebunk High School. A girl declared: “I almost fainted when I heard him answer my question.” A boy said, “I was sweating a lot!” Schools highlighted space and STEM in cross-curriculum courses. Sea Road School’s STEM team collaborated with several area amateur radio clubs, one of which offered a free course in electronics and radio fundamentals, radio demos, and electronics project-building. The day’s events were streamed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN70OpJFMgs with 400 live views, and a week later, 1,163 additional viewers. Media included TV stations WMTW and WABI and three online news services, with one of the latter posting a story from a writer who was realizing, while watching the ARISS contact, the effect Christa McAuliffe had on his life: https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/opinion/2021/01/28/opinion-looking-life-mcauliffes-legacy-alive-well-rsu-21/6699452002/

January 21: ARISS YouTube channel subscribers topped 1,000!  The channel was set up only eight months ago.

January 28: An ARISS contact was scheduled with Amur State University students in Blagoveshchensk. Cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov supported the contact and more details will be available soon.

January 22: Students in Prince William County, VA were featured in the ISS National Lab blog, ISS360.  After their pre-Covid ARISS school contact, the K-5 Gifted Education Resource teacher (and ARISS-US Education Committee lead) Kathy Lamont led them in DreamUp’s Germs in Space activities. Students became scientists, swabbing surfaces for microbes and discovering that the Petri dish with a swab of library books was the most active!

January 21: Perception Pictures released a six-minute sci-fi horror film titled Decommissioned that features SuitSat, a satellite the ARISS team designed in 2006. The film depicts SuitSat as a menacing force terrorizing an ISS crew member, played by Joey Vieira. The ARISS team had developed and built an antenna and radio gear to fit in a decommissioned Orlan spacesuit that was deployed from the ISS as a free-floating satellite. For two weeks, SuitSat transmitted friendly ham radio messages pre-recorded by ARISS in several languages from students around the globe, plus telemetry and slow-scan TV images as it circled Earth. The link to the film clip is: https://vimeo.com/502018179?ref=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR30zx8S6hrcF41aSQSFMpoqTh-ASjAxRxpVPlRj4IZocZJBd9HMX4HiqCs.  ARRL, an ARISS sponsor, invited a popular YouTube channel host to interview Frank Bauer and the director of the sci-fi film in early February. Bauer will cover the development and implementation of the real SuitSat 1 and 2 and the rewarding story of ARISS that continues today.

January 28: The Newcastle (WY) High School ARISS contact was unsuccessful; troubleshooting began immediately, with the focus being on the antenna path (which was changed during the preceding Bartolomeo EVA), since the radio appears functional. The school contact will be re-scheduled.

January 28-29: An SSTV session was sponsored by Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI-75) with images downlinked from the ISS Service Module radio. Full details will be in next week’s report.

Upcoming Events 

February 4-6: Three ARISS-US Education Committee members will give two different presentations related to ARISS at sessions during the 2021 Space Exploration Educators Conference.

February 5: An ARISS school contact is scheduled for students in Vladivostok, Russia. Sergey Ryzhikov will support this.

February 5: Students at the Ottawa Carleton District School are tentatively scheduled for an ARISS contact with Mike Hopkins.