Category: Weekly Reports

December 5: Students at Orangeburg (SC) Christian Academy enjoyed an ARISS contact with Jasmin Moghbeli who answered 20 of their questions. 322 people on site watched the contact, the school livestreamed the event on Facebook for other students and staff, and in a few days’ time, 1,000 others had viewed the recording. WLTX-TV in Columbia posted an online piece with video; the writer noted: “With aerospace being a top industry in South Carolina, educators hope this opportunity will inspire some students to become future scientists.” The WLXT URL is https://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/i-mean-whats-cooler-than-talking-to-an-astronaut-orangeburg-students-s-preparing-for-space-callouth-carolina/101-4639ca16-cf04-40a8-8023-ec95f3a349f6. The Times and Democrat ran three stories. A parent wrote the school and summarized, “Everyone deserves an A.”  Faculty had injected ISS research, space science, electronics, amateur radio communications, and astronomy into the curriculum. 

December 5: ARISS team members helped students in two Virginia towns to listen in on Moghbeli talking with Orangeburg youth (above blurb).  ARISS team member Will Marchant traveled to Winchester STARBASE Academy to demo his portable ham radio equipment to students listening to Jasmin talk from space. The academy, an after-school Department of Defense (DOD) STEM program, hosts area schools to engage students in inquiry-based, hands-on STEM. That day, an area school 5^th grade teacher said Will caused her students to “intensely listen to how an astronaut can live and work on the space station.” STARBASE aims to be “the premier DOD youth outreach program for raising interest in learning and improving the knowledge and skills of our nation’s at-risk youth so that we may develop a highly educated and skilled American workforce who can meet the advance technological requirements of the Department of Defense.” The STARBASE director invited Will to come back whenever he can.  In Woodbridge, VA, ARISS educator Kathy Lamont had her Belmont Elementary School students manipulate her portable ham radio equipment to listen to Moghbeli and the Orangeburg youth. 

December 4: Two German schools, Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Schule in Eutin and Gymnasium im Loekamp in Marl worked together to share an ARISS contact with Andreas Mogensen. Students asked him 16 questions. Between both schools, 45 educators, 1,000 students, and 45 parents watched the action on site or via livestreaming. In 12 hours’ time 1,498 people had viewed the recording. Media covering the event consisted of reporters from area press, a regional radio station, and an internet broadcaster.  Both schools offered students a variety of science classesas preparation for the ARISS contact.

November 28: Primary School of Zipari Kos, in Zipari, Greece will host a December ARISS contact. Faculty reported having lead 500 students age 6 to 11 in lessons on astronomy and robots.  Students took part in amateur radio lessons and researched astronaut training. Teachers in all 20 school departments plan on activities for Space Week, scheduled for the week of the ARISS contact. Two publications featured the school in stories about the upcoming ARISS contact, the online Vimatisko.gr and the Greek City Times (https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/12/06/primary-school-in-kos-iss/).   

December 1:  ARISS thanks NASA SCaN for creating and running a set of social media posts on Facebook and X that tout the anniversary of 40 years of ham radio used on space vehicles.

December 7: The ISS National Lab wrote and posted a web story titled “ISS National Lab Highlights Scientific Research Conducted in 2023.”  ARISS was very honored that a segment of the story featured ARISS.

ARISS Upcoming Events

Dec 13: Youth in Obninsk, Kaluga Oblast, Russia—ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team
Dec 14: Primary School of Zipari Kos, Zipari, Greece—ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
Feb 22-24, 2024: Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40^th Anniversary Celebration, KSC Center for Space Education, Titusville FL—ARISS conference & gala, ARISS-I Team

November 17:  ARISS educator Cassie Zielenski and her fellow teachers began engaging Mountain View Elementary School’s 841 students in Marietta, GA, in STEM activities tied to ARISS once her school’s education proposal was accepted for an ARISS contact. K-5 students got an introduction to some lessons in the ARISS SPARKI Kit, enjoyed a scavenger hunt tied to codes such as Morse code, and will soon engage in activities using the ARISS Radio Pi equipment. ARISS educator Martha Muir and six members of the nearby North Fulton Amateur Radio League and the Cherokee Amateur Radio Club traveled to the school to judge entries in the Balloons over Mountain View STEM Parade. Students had created balloons with designs of planets, space, space vehicles, and other STEM items. Cassie and other teachers guided students with their creations in marching by the judges for a quick review. 

November 17: Andreas Mogensen supported an excellent ARISS radio contact with students at New Heights School & Learning Services in Calgary, AB, Canada. Mogensen answered all 15 of the students’ questions.  120 students in this K-12 school viewed the event via Zoom. 53 staff members watched the youth asking their questions. The ARISS radio telebridge operators handling the radio contact streamed their radio activities, garnering 103 viewers.  No media was invited by the staff due to privacy concerns for these special students. The faculty had readied the youth for their ARISS contact by facilitating a month-long “whole-school activity” program and they designated November 14-17 as Space Week. Youth engaged in special projects on sky science, space exploration, and electromagnetic energy, among other things.

November 22: The National Research Lobachevsky State University in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia held a successful ARISS radio contact for students with Konstantin Borisov. 8 students and 50 visitors and administrators attended the event.  The ARISS-Russia team supported the youth with the About Gagarin from Space lesson series and the ARISS contact.

October 8-14: ARISS educator Diane Warner planned with fellow members of the All Things Amateur Radio Association (ATARA) to bring its STEM trailer to the Fairfield County Fair in Lancaster, OH for a week. The trailer houses ARISS and other displays such as a model of the ISS, and some hands-on STEM activities. These items engaged 350 adults and 80 youth who walked in. Club members set up a tent by the trailer also, and hung posters depicting the club’s activities—two were about ARISS. Three weeks later, the club brought the STEM trailer back to the fairgrounds for Freedom’s Never Free, an annual event honoring veterans. Club members also set up their STEM and ARISS posters inside a building filled with more exhibits for veterans.    

November 25:  An ARISS contact took place with pupils from schools in the Aznakaevsky District of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Tatarstan, Russia. Students held their contact with Konstantin Borisov after engaging in the About Gagarin From Space lessons. Children with disabilities were included in the contact event. As with other ARISS-Russia sponsored ARISS contacts, this one was scheduled by Mission Control Center-Moscow.

November 29: ARISS thanks NASA for posting a superb web article on their Space Station Research page about ARISS engaging and inspiring students worldwide for STEM, for 40 years. The story begins with a young man who took part in a 2018 ARISS contact. Today, he says it showed him how rewarding STEM careers could be, and it caused him to decide to get an electrical engineering degree. The writer ran his quote: “I hope the program continues for a long time. It is so important for kids trying to figure out what you want to accomplish in life.” The URL for the article is https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/ham-radio-in-space-engaging-with-students-worldwide-for-40-years/ 

ARISS thanks NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, also, for posting on Facebook about ARISS’ 40 years of connecting students to astronauts.                     

ARISS Social Media for November

ARISS social media leader Jim Reed reported November highlights:

• ARISS had 380,141 total impressions for November.  
• Several videos were in ARISS posts, generating more than 1,100 minutes of viewing. 

ARISS Total September-October-November Social Media Metrics:

• ARISS X – Total Impressions / Views 237,938,  Interactions / Engagements  5,943 
• ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions / Views 133,553,  Interactions / Engagements 4,027
• ARISS Total New Followers across platforms 591
• ARISS LinkedIn – Total Impressions 306,  Reactions 13
• ARISS YouTube – Total subscribers increased to 2,000
• ARISS Web Pages – Unique Visits 16,706, Page Views 50,773 

November Top Posts

Top X post (53,199 Impressions, 544 Engagements): an update on an MAI Slow Scan TV (picture downlinks) session

Top Facebook post (15,470 Impressions, 241 Engagements): video of Bob Cabana, who had supported Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment radio contacts, now retiring from NASA.

ARISS Upcoming Events  
Dec 5: Orangeburg Christian Academy, Orangeburg SC—ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
Dec 11: Harbor Creek School, Harborcreek PA—ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
Dec 13: Youth in Obninsk, Kaluga Oblast, Russia, ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team
Feb 22-24, 2024: Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40^th Anniversary Celebration, KSC Center for Space Education, Titusville FL—ARISS conference & gala, ARISS- Team

October 26: ARISS educator Gina Kwid coaches the Galileo STEM Academy’s STEM Club—the school is in Eagle, ID.  She took club members, fourth and fifth graders, to the Eagle Island State Park, near the town, so students could enjoy getting outside for portable ham radio operations. They took part in a US-wide ham activity called Parks on the Air.  Before heading out from the school for the park, kids had practiced talking on the portable radios. At the park, the STEM Club’s other three sponsors, area ham operators, set up the radio station and antenna with a little help from the kids.   

October 25: ARISS enthusiast Randy Hall presented a talk during the particularly popular weekly virtual program for ham operators, Ham Radio Crash Course. He gave an update on his favorite ARISS activity, Slow Scan TV (SSTV picture links) sessions, where cosmonauts transmit images for space enthusiasts, ham operators, educators, and students to download. Live viewers of his session totaled 595, and within 8 days, another 1,705 had watched.  Mr. Hall’s talk covered the latest updates on ARISS SSTV, and his charts explained easy ways to download the images. 

November 22:  ARISS thanks NASA for posting a Science on Station story that describes ARISS activities that encourage young people worldwide to study STEM. The story said:  “These programs aim to inspire the next generation of space scientists and explorers and experts who solve problems facing people on earth.” NASA cited ARISS as the first and longest running educational outreach program on the ISS. A footnote cited the recent article written by ARISS team member Martin Diggens and others about the impact of ARISS on students. See NASA’s web posting at https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/science-on-station-november-2023/

November 15: ARISS educator Melissa Pore co-moderated a panel session at the ISS National Lab User Advisory Committee Workshop held in Washington DC. The panel session, an event before the opening of the 2023 annual meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, focused on a STEM workforce and the future of space. The panel session, titled “What does STEM workforce development mean to you?” garnered 100 attendees and other people listened virtually. They included researchers, professors, and representatives of non-profit groups and commercial space companies. Panelists led a Q&A at the end of the session where Melissa highlighted ARISS as a perfect pathway for students to be inspired about STEM careers, the pathway many of her students have followed.   

November 15: ARISS’ 40th Anniversary Conference in February 2024 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex was approved by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL—the national headquarters for ham radio operators) to be named an ARRL-sanctioned Specialty Conference. This means ARRL will publicize the conference in its weekly e-letter (107k subscribers) and monthly journal (160k members), and a descriptive listing has now been posted on its web pages. The publicity should bring in more attendees and ARRL will also provide some door prizes.

November 18:  ARISS Social Media leader Jim Reed spoke about ARISS during a special “Weather Pod,” the name of podcasts hosted by the Carolina Weather Group. Jim talked about a few schools going ahead with hosting scheduled ARISS contacts despite a hurricane and other disasters in their area, giving youth and communities a much-needed boost.  This particular Weather Pod, titled “Weather Pods Disaster Relief Telethon, raised funds for disaster relief activities and to support the American Red Cross. Five hosts moderated the telethon and The Weather Channel’s well-known Jim Cantore was a guest speaker. In a week’s time, the YouTube garnered 222 viewers.

November 17:  ISS Ham Radio Project Coordinator Kenneth Ransom and ARISS team member Ana Guzman at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX spoke to six NASA astronaut candidates about the ARISS program and ARISS school radio contacts.  The meeting covered technical aspects of the radio operations and communications. Other parts of the meeting highlighted the cool aspects of talking to large groups of students at educational facilities and the major inspiration astronauts’ ARISS radio contacts give to students, teachers, parents, and the community. Six more of the candidates plan to attend similar sessions in the coming weeks. 

ARISS Upcoming Events
February 22-24, 2023: Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40^th Anniversary Celebration, KSC Center for Space Education, Titusville FL  —ARISS conference & gala, ARISS-I Team

November 3: Walkerston State School in Walkerston, Queensland, Australia held an ARISS contact for its students with Loral O’Hara. Great radio signals resulted in 16 students’ questions being answered. With a few minutes left at the end of the ISS’ pass, students sent up a big thanks and applause to Loral. A crowd of over 70 people watched the action. The school serves 320 students for grade levels 1-6 and had integrated space-related topics and technology into the yearly plan. The administration had partnered with the Mackay Astronomy Club and set up several star-gazing nights for all students.

November 6: Halls Head College youth in Mandurah, Western Australia, Australia enjoyed watching 13 fellow students talk with Loral O’Hara on the ISS.  She answered 14 of their questions. The school’s 1,400 students in grade levels 7-12 viewed a YouTube the school had set up. In addition to traditional curriculum that includes a cross-curricular STEM approach, students can select vocational and training courses offered both on and off campus. The school developed partnerships with area professional and university subject matter experts in the fields of space exploration.  

October 14-15: The 2023 AMSAT-UK Colloquium took place in Milton Keynes, UK.  The event is held each year at the same time and place as the Radio Society of Great Britain’s (RSGB—the UK national amateur radio society) annual meeting. Both offer subject matter experts presenting papers and forum talks for amateur radio enthusiasts.  Ciaran Morgan, ARISS lead for the UK and an RSGB representative, gave a forum on the newest ARISS projects and school radio contacts. Also presenting a forum was John Hislop who told all about the recent ARISS contact he had assisted with at St Peter Junior School in Broadstairs. Both talks drew 30 attendees. The livestream of the forums each garnered 65 viewers.

November 4: ARISS educator Martha Muir and ARISS social media guru Jim Reed shared the platform, presenting a forum on ARISS, at the annual Stone Mountain HamFest (a gathering of ham radio enthusiasts) in Lawrenceville, GA.  They spoke on the latest news about ARISS projects, touched on recent ARISS contacts held at Georgia schools, and announced the 40th Anniversary Conference: Celebrating the Positive Impact of Amateur Radio on Human Spaceflight to be held in February 2024.  

October 28:  Frank Bauer gave a talk to youth who belong to the East Coast Chapter of the Youth in Education program, the student arm of the Tuskegee Airmen.  The 15 high school youth and some of their informal educators met in the chapter’s College Park, MD instructional room to listen Frank describe some of the latest ARISS educational activities.  

November 3: Nearly a month after the Valley Stream (NY) South High School ARISS contact, a reporter from the online news source LIHerald.com posted her story all about being impressed with the thought-provoking questions students had asked Andreas Mogensen. The 8th through 12^th graders’ questions had resulted from studies taught in preparation for the contact covering astronomy and satellites, physics of rocket launches and orbital mechanics, and how amateur radio communications is used on the ISS.  The reporter’s story, titled “A look at the questions Valley Stream South students sent to the International Space Station,” also quoted the principal who said, “The stories of astronauts like Andreas Mogensen, and the images of distant planets inspire us all to dream big and aim for the stars motivating the next generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers.”

ARISS Upcoming Events
November 17: New Heights School-Learning Service, Calgary AB—ARISS contact, ARISS-Canada Team
Feb 22 – 24, 2024: Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40^th Anniversary Celebration—ARISS conference and gala, ARISS-I Team

October 27: The ARISS-Russia team held a Slow Scan TV (SSTV–picture downlinks) test to verify the operation of SSTV hardware the cosmonauts had re-installed.  Worldwide, 1,124 ham operators and space enthusiasts downloaded images. 993 of these participants posted 3,856 images online to the ARISS SSTV Gallery at https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php. Many enthusiasts typed notes about their radios and antennas—the most unusual comment spotted said the ham operator tried out a new antenna he built from parts of an old umbrella! Overall, 130 students took part, as did 260 formal or informal educators. Over 20 kids from many countries at the annual week-long International Amateur Radio Union-Region 3 Youth On The Air camp—this year, held in Pattaya City, Thailand—crowded around a few hand-held radios to download SSTV transmissions. 12 unique images downlinked to earth featured ARISS and Russian space history.

October 24: ARISS educator Kathy Lamont at Belmont Elementary School in Woodbridge, VA is leading her students in preparing for their 2024 ARISS contact. They enjoyed a communications lesson using a handheld radio and antenna to listen to Jasmin Moghbeli support the ARISS contact at the A. L. Burruss Elementary School in Georgia.  A few days prior to that, Kathy took the opportunity to teach about Russian SSTV radio transmissions. She had kids learn about elevation angles during an ISS pass using a tracking app. She had them use a compass to find where to point the antenna to acquire the radio signal.

November 1:  Scholastica, an academic journal management system, published a research article all about ARISS. The paper, by Martin Diggens, J. Williams, and G. Benedix ,is based on Diggens’ PhD dissertation. An ARISS Australian volunteer, doctoral student Diggens interviewed many ARISS team members in order to write his dissertation on the impact ARISS has had on STEM Education—he discovered a very positive impact!  Scholastica carried the paper in the Space Education & Strategic Applications Journal. The article titled “No Roadblocks in Low Earth Orbit: The Motivational Role of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) School Program in STEM Education” can be seen at https://doi.org/10.18278/001c.89715.

October 15-16: ARISS educator Mic Ivancic in Milan, Italy, gave two online presentations about her teaching experiences that provided hands-on activities on space, STEM, and ARISS to students. At the online presentations, supported by ESERO Italy, she guided 12 teachers and 40 students, age 8 to 10 years old, on lessons to try in their classrooms. For 10 years, she has engaged students in STEM at several schools, led a summer Space Camp using her most youth-inspiring activities, and is currently guiding lessons at Space Adventures, a monthly Saturday event for youth.   

October 17: Cosmonaut Nikolay Chub supported an ARISS contact for students at Kaliningrad University in Kaliningrad, Russia. Students asked him questions about life in space. 100 people attended the radio contact event, which was tied to the Gagarin from Space lessons led by the ARISS-Russia team.  Also, students examined the sample SSTV images that the ARISS-Russia team planned for cosmonauts to transmit from the ISS to space enthusiasts on the ground. 

ARISS Social Media for October

ARISS social media leader Jim Reed reported October highlights:

• 919 New Followers in October—the highest increase since October 2022
• A terrific 542,502 total Impressions this month
•  An unusual post grabbing over 100,000 views—telling about inputting azimuth and elevation into antenna-tracking software prior to the A.L. Burruss Elementary School ARISS contact
• 3 posts on ARISS’ 40^th Anniversary event generating over 21,000 impressions on 3 platforms    

ALL NEW

• ARISS X – Total Impressions / Views 267,575,  Interactions / Engagements 9,716 
• ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions 264,733,  Interactions / Engagements 5,884
• ARISS Instagram – Total Reach 10,194,  Interactions / Engagements 965
• ARISS Mastodon – Interactions / Engagements 239
• ARISS LinkedIn  –  Total Impressions 257 / Interactions 90     
• ARISS YouTube – Total Subscribers increased to 1.98k

October Top Posts

The top post on Facebook and Instagram (110,932 Total Impressions) told about inputting azimuth and elevation into antenna-tracking software for an ARISS contact.  Top post on X (13,546 Impressions) gave date/time details on the SSTV test.

• Top X post: Impressions 13,546, Interactions / Engagements 745
• Top Facebook post: Impressions110,556,  Interactions / Engagements 190
• Top Instagram post: Impressions 376, Interactions / Engagements 39
• Top Mastodon post: Interactions / Engagements 24

ARISS Upcoming Events  
Nov 6: Halls Head College, Mandurah, WA, Australia—ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan Team
Nov 17: New Heights School-Learning Service, Calgary AB—ARISS contact, ARISS-Canada Team
February 22-24, 2024: Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40th Anniversary Celebration—ARISS conference and gala, ARISS-I Team

October 18: St Peter CE Junior School in Broadstairs, UK hosted an ARISS radio contact for students with Jasmin Moghbeli. 19 students asked her their questions and then their resounding thanks went up to Jasmin. 360 of the school’s students and 40 from several area schools sat in the audience as did 100 parents and faculty. From other locations, 300 more people watched the livestream (https://youtu.be/lnPlIHGV-YE), with the YouTube total climbing to 660 in 9 days’ time. UK Reserve Astronaut Meganne Christian came as a very special guest; she spoke to youth about her training for future space flight and her nine months living at Concordia Station, an Antarctica research outpost. Reporters came to Broadstairs from the biggest UK news groups, local and regional BBC and ITV. Young Isabella Payne initiated this ARISS radio contact; last year over 25 worldwide media outlets had posted her story about making a ham radio contact one evening with Kjell Lindgren on the ISS.  The St Peter headmaster reported that in the past year, every student had taken part in STEM activities related to space and radio, from being mentored in the art of stargazing with the help of the Ramsgate Stargazers club to learning how to track the FUNcube, an amateur radio satellite. 

October 4: Girl Scout Troop 1089 in Sacramento, CA has been preparing for a number of weeks for their ARISS contact in early 2024. They’ve worked with the parts of the ARISS Education SPARKI lesson kit that allows youth to put components together to make series electrical circuits and parallel electrical circuits. With another part of the kit, they built an AM radio and a Morse code device. The girls learned to work a ham radio station that will download Slow Scan TV images (picture links). Troop leaders introduced the girls to talking over the air to other radio amateurs; they completed both voice radio contacts and digital radio contacts. Their final lesson will be working with Software Defined Radios. 

October 24:  ARISS launched special pages on its website for the 40th Anniversary Conference: 
Celebrating the Positive Impact of Amateur Radio on Human Spaceflight. The conference is February 22-24 at the Center for Space Education at Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Some of the many activities include seeing display booths in the exhibit area, amateur radio spaceflight exhibits, networking sessions in the exhibit area, STEM education demonstrations, and two conference days packed with astronaut panel sessions, presentations by youth alumni in STEM careers, short talks of recollections by educators and volunteer team alumni that supported Shuttle, Mir, and ISS hardware development, flight operations and youth STEM engagement.  Readers of this report who want to attend, please visit www.ariss.org and click the menu tab labeled “40^th Anniversary.”

October 24: The faculty and students at A. L. Burruss Elementary School in Marietta, GA carried out their ARISS contact with Jasmin Moghbeli, who answered 13 students’ questions and got loud cheers and applause at the end. The school’s chorus and dance team performed for the audience of 510 who also viewed a few space videos. A speaker explained how the ham radio station at the school connects students to the ARISS radio on the ISS. The press on hand, from three TV stations and one newspaper, interviewed students. 98 viewers enjoyed watching a livestream of the contact (www.youtube.com/channel/UCuI4sKDBpERtEFs9bFrRMFA/live); in three days’ time, 281 people had viewed it. Students enjoyed the Tomatosphere™ project and used a Geochron monitor to track and examine locations of the ISS. GOT Space and the Georgia Space Grant Consortium staff assisted students in using VR headsets to tour the ISS. Students had researched outer space, radio waves, and communications.

October 20: ARISS educator Gina Kwid gave her science classes at Galileo STEM Academy in Eagle, ID a real “lift” when she, students, and two area ham operators, one an engineer, put together everything for a helium balloon launch. The 4-foot diameter balloon carried a telemetry payload transmitting Gina’s ham radio call sign, a Raspberry Pi Operating System, and solar panels; the transmissions allowed students to monitor the balloon flight on a tracking website. After a successful launch, the balloon eventually reached 29,000 feet. Students watching the website saw blips labeled with Gina’s call sign and they wrote down the direction and altitude, thinking through possible causes for the data. After several hours, the balloon began losing altitude travelling over Montana and transmissions stopped. The students enjoyed launching this pico balloon and all of the learning accompanying the experience.

October 21: Frank Bauer and Dave Taylor represented ARISS at the 2023 AMSAT Symposium in Dallas, TX, giving talks. Frank presented two. The first was on amateur radio communication between the Moon and Earth and was titled “Lunar Amateur Radio Spectrum Coordination;” 27 people attended. The second talk, titled “Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40^th Anniversary Celebration,” drew a group of 50 to hear him tell about the February 2024 ARISS conference at the Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex.  Dave Taylor’s presentation to 50 people, titled “ARISS Update,” summarized some of the many successes ARISS accomplished throughout the past year. The talks, made available on YouTube, captured 874 views. ARISS team member Randy Berger also attended the symposium and the following day, led nine members of his engineering team in an all-day work session.

October 22: ARISS enthusiast Randy Hall gave a talk at the ARRL Pacific Division Convention in San Ramon, CA; he focused on Slow Scan TV (SSTV picture links) sessions. These happen when ARISS-Russia plans a time period for cosmonauts to downlink images that space enthusiasts and ham radio operators can download. Mr. Hall’s talk covered the ways to download the images and how to get everything ready for when a new session is announced.  His video and charts gave the audience a good sense of what SSTV sessions are like and generated many listener questions. At the end, Mr. Hall took a photo before most people left, telling them to “wave because ARISS wants a photo for a weekly report.”

October 3: Lilburn (GA) Elementary School’s 1,217 students in grades 1 through 5 enjoyed hands-on activities in preparation for their upcoming ARISS contact. All classes’ researched the history of NASA mission patches and each class developed their own patch to represent the diversity of the students in their classes. Students created art that projected themselves as an astronaut.  The 2nd through 5th grader teachers helped students research President Kennedy’s Moonshot idea that turned into reality due to “Moonshot Thinkers.” The students then became Moonshot Thinkers, brainstorming their own wildest ideas about space. One kindergarten teacher asked students to involve their families in a space project at home and students brought these in to share with classmates. This project introduced families to space and the upcoming ARISS radio contact and built further excitement.  

ARISS Upcoming Events
Nov 3: Walkerston State School, Walkerston, QLD, Australia—ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan Team
Nov 6: Halls Head College, Mandurah, WA, Australia – ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan Team
Feb 22-24, 2024: Human Spaceflight Amateur Radio: 40^th Anniversary Celebration—ARISS conference and gala, ARISS-I Team

October 13: In West Peabody, MA, the Covenant Christian Academy (CCA) faculty introduced their ARISS contact to the audience by saying the entire student body, PK through 12^th grade, was welcoming (virtually) a very special guest—Loral O’Hara. It was her first ARISS contact and she answered 20 student questions.  500 people were on hand; others watched the livestream (https://vimeo.com/event/3761617), which 90 minutes later, had gotten 430 views.  Seven media outlets ran stories:  Daily News, ItemLive, Ground News (2 stories), Bollyinside, 3 ARRL affiliates’ web sites, the Niche school review site, and The Salem News. The latter’s story is at https://www.salemnews.com/news/covenant-christian-academy-students-speak-with-international-space-station-through-ham-radio/article_0f9c9a68-6a0b-11ee-baed-9fc56bfb6610.html.  Lydia, a 7^th grader, said: “It was really cool hearing her voice, [I was] thinking, wow she’s in space right now! I got answers to a lot of questions I’ve been wondering about ever since I heard of space station astronauts.” In preparation for the ARISS contact, all ages of students learned about outer space, the ISS, and amateur radio. STEM coordinator Jennifer O’Riordan said the faculty’s goal was to help students see science in action. An area ham operator helped develop after-school programs for CCA’s ham radio club on how to operate the amateur radio and know its range of uses from chatting with new friends to coordinating life-saving efforts during emergencies. 

October 17: The 1,260 students of Valley Stream (NY) South High School watched their peers converse with Andreas Mogensen; he answered 11 questions. In the hour prior to the contact, students and faculty presented a program including a choral group singing and short talks by Science Honors Society officers with help from the Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club (LIMARC). The talks summarized details on the ISS and how ham radio works to make an ARISS contact happen with onboard crew using the ARISS radio. The principal, dressed in a NASA jumpsuit, and Science Department Chair Jeanette Azzaretto fired up students’ enthusiasm; the latter giving them this thought: “The stars are not too far away; let this event be the spark that ignites your inspiration.”  Two TV stations ran coverage during their newscasts. The school district invited all other district schools to watch the livestream, it captured 274 views, and in 3 days, 852 more views. The URL is https://youtube.com/live/g74NbsTEvVw?feature=share. The ARISS Technical Mentor, remote in New Hampshire, saw 24 viewers tying into his system. Over several months’ time, students had engaged in science and ARISS lessons covering topics that included: astronomy and satellites, physics of rocket launches and orbital mechanics, and with help from LIMARC, amateur radio communications in space. 

October 11: Students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Wangsa Maju Seksyen 2 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia took part in an ARISS contact with Andreas Mogensen. He answered nine students’ questions and the lead teacher asked the tenth question: “What is the best advice for our students if they want to become an astronaut like you?”  72 people—students, educators, and administrators—came to watch at the Planetarium Negara. The staff sponsored activities for World Space Week and students enjoyed STEM programs with Kementerian Sains Teknologi on the importance of space technology.  The livestream on the planetarium’s Facebook site got many viewers and within 7 days’ time, captured 1.4k views. The YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/live/YLMFcozC-2o?feature=shared got 695 views within 9 days. Viewer numbers for both videos are still climbing.

October 10: Poland ESERO (European Space Education Resource Office) hosted an online reception titled, “About Space over Coffee.” It featured a discussion about ARISS by science researcher and ARISS volunteer Dr. Armand Budzianowski. 60 people, mostly educators and students, listened. He spoke on the benefits to each of them of participating in ARISS projects and also the space activities that can be introduced into lessons and extracurricular activities, such as receiving radio signals and images from the ISS. He included how educators can compete for an ARISS contact and locate area radio amateurs to get their assistance.

October 14: The annual Melbourne Hamfest (a gathering of radio enthusiasts) in Florida prides itself as the second largest hamfest in the state with several thousand attending. The two day event features forums, among other things, and ARISS Technical Mentor Ryan Krenzischek presented a talk on ARISS. He gave a short history of the program followed by how to prepare to aid an education group with an ARISS contact, showed a several-minute video of an ARISS contact that took place in Melbourne in 2023, and ended with a Q&A. Afterwards, a high school teacher from Gainesville expressed interest to Ryan in writing an ARISS Education Proposal in hopes of winning an ARISS contact. Other attendees included ARISS engineer Lou McFadin.

October 11: An article posted online by The Western Journal described the ARISS program and featured a Michigan ham radio operator using his hand-held amateur radio and antenna to try to make a radio contact (which he did) with Woody Hoburg on the ISS. The writer aptly defined ARISS as an “educational program” and as “designed to use such out-of-this-world encounters to spark the imagination and enthusiasm of students to pursue careers in science and technology by allowing young people to chat with astronauts in space.”

ARISS Upcoming Events  
Oct 24: A.L. Burruss Elementary School, Marietta, GA—ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

October 6: The Space Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azercosmos, hosted the first-ever ARISS contact in that country. Students came from No. 149 Secondary School in Baku as did some 8th to 11th graders from more area schools. Andreas Mogensen answered 7 questions. 54 students, 9 faculty members, and 6 from the community watched the action. The ARISS contact coincided with two space events in Baku—the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) and World Space Week 2023. Media coverage included Ictimai TV, CBC, OXU.az, Report Information Agency (https://report.az/ikt/azerbaycanli-mektebliler-beynelxalq-kosmik-stansiya-ile-elaqe-qura-bilibler/), and Azercosmos’ global-wide PR—see its Instagram posts at
https://www.instagram.com/p/CyEAggmqAcG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==.  Azerbaijan’ national point of contact for the Space Generation Advisory Council, Nadir Atayev, assisted with the ARISS contact and shared with students part of a talk he gave on space engineering at a workshop sponsored by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs with the International Astronautical Federation in conjunction with the IAC.  The Azerbaijan Central Radio Club and the Ganja Collective Radio Club hams organized the radio set up. Earlier, No. 149 students participated in regional competitions for exact and technical sciences; faculty said these helped youth build “a spirit of scientific curiosity and inspiration in STEAM science.”

October 6: The ARISS radio contact for Technological University Dublin in Dublin, Ireland saw Jasmin Moghbeli answering 18 student questions. The university had students viewing the livestream at six area schools as part of Ireland’s World Space Week activities. 2,744 people watched the action during the ARISS contact or via the livestream. Another 1,132 viewed the recording within a few days’ time. A university staffer said: “I’ve been laughing and bawling my eyes out watching the ARISS contact video—what an amazing thing for these kids!” The university posted a short video on X of the kids waiting to hear Moghbeli’s voice; the post got 5,147 views!  19 news sources posted reports with two being NewsTalk.com (https://www.newstalk.com/news/dublin-deis-schools-to-talk-to-international-space-station-1512651) and DublinPeople.com (https://dublinpeople.com/news/education/articles/2023/10/06/iss-schoolchildren-chat/).  An Irish Times reporter wrote, ”Crew 7 is a multinational team — a beacon of global cooperation in a time of uncertainty and conflict.”   The six schools take advantage of Delivering Equality of Opportunity (DEIS), described as: an action plan for educational inclusion that brings together a number of programs and helps identify and regularly review levels of disadvantage, and improves pupils’ learning experiences and outcomes.  The students had learned about orbital mechanics, how the ARISS radios would connect to the ISS, and heard engineer and scientist Dr. Niamh Shaw describe her exciting Mars science mission in the Kalahari Desert, Botswana.

October 10: An ARISS contact in Belgium was hosted for students at the Belgian Defence Koninklijke School voor Onderofficieren (KSOO) in Sint-Truiden and at IEPS (students from Lycée Albert Libiez and the Jurbise Social Promotion School) in Colfontaine. KSOO is a major non-commissioned officers’ school and training center while the IEPS is for high school students and life-long learners, ages 15 and older. Jasmin Moghbeli answered 12 students’ questions, leaving time for them to thank her before loss of the radio signal. Reporters from three TV stations, one radio station, and a written press company were on hand. Along with the ARISS contact, the audience at both sites listened to STEM presentations. Colfontaine had organized three conferences as part of Space Week and hosted a ham radio satellite demo, a digital ham radio demo, and more radio-related activities. Two online news agencies ran stories, Nieuwsblad.BE and TÉLÉMB.BE, with the latter posting a short video at https://www.telemb.be/article/station-spatiale-internationale.

October 11: ARISS social media leader Jim Reed announced that ARISS Facebook has crossed the threshold of 10,000+ followers. He thanked the team for its assistance and thanked those who look to ARISS social media for the latest updates on our STEAM-based activities.

October 5: ARISS Director of Education Tanya Anderson held an ARISS Proposal Webinar with other ARISS leaders to guide US educators wanting to know more about ARISS school contacts.  In addition to the 4 ARISS team members, 29 people tuned in to the webinar. Educators, formal and informal, watched a PowerPoint presentation and asked many questions related to writing an ARISS Education Proposal in hopes of winning an ARISS contact in second half 2024.

ARISS Upcoming Events  
Oct 17: Valley Stream South High School, Valley Stream, NY—ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
Oct 18: St Peter CE Junior School, Broadstairs, Kent, UK—ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team

September 30: ARISS educator Diane Warner and seven members of her radio club, the All Things Amateur Radio Association (ATARA) of Lancaster, OH, took their STEM trailer with its ARISS and ham radio exhibits to WestFest in Columbus, OH.  WestFest, short for West Campus Science & Sustainability Festival, is Ohio State University’s annual STEM festival that offers around 40 hands-on STEM “activity booths” for kids.  ATARA set up 2 tables near their trailer in order to provide inside and outside activities. Undergrads of the Amateur Radio & RF Club of Ohio State University and the news editor for ARRL joined ATARA in staffing their exhibits. 80 kids and 60 adults engaged in the activities; two favorites: learning to use a multimeter to measure electrical resistance and putting together SnapCircuits® components resulting in an electrical circuit that made a buzzer sound. Diane wrote, “It was really cool watching these kids with their interest in STEM, trying their hand at activities we provided.” 

October 1: ARISS volunteer Dave Taylor set up an ARISS information table at the CARAFest ham radio convention in Columbia, MD.  He demonstrated the radio kit portion of the ARISS SPARKI education project and talked with attendees about STEM education, space communications, and general aspects of ISS life and activities.  He talked with 27 adults and 7 youth who were middle and high school age.

September 28: In Blagoveshchensk, Russia, students of the MAEI School No. 16, named after pilot-cosmonaut A.A. Leonov, went to the Amur State University for an ARISS contact to ask questions of Oleg Kononenko. The youths also learned about space and received career guidance. 30 people came for the contact sponsored by the ARISS-Russia team.

ARISS Social Media for September

ARISS social media leader Jim Reed reported September highlights:

• ARISS surpassed 30,000 Followers across all platforms—a record for us!
• In the past 12 months, total Followers increased by 17.2%.

ARISS Total September Social Media Metrics:

• ARISS X – Total Impressions / Views 110,296,  Interactions / Engagements 3,845 
• ARISS Facebook – Total Impressions 92,579,  Interactions / Engagements 3,031
• ARISS Instagram – Total Reach 6,153,  Interactions / Engagements 530
• ARISS Mastodon – Interactions / Engagements 71
• ARISS LinkedIn  –  281 Reactions     
• ARISS YouTube – Total Subscribers 1.96k

September Top Posts

The top post on both X and Facebook (14.5k and 9.01k respectively) described ways to engage with ARISS radios—an SSTV test and the digipeater. Top Instagram post touted Jasmin Moghbeli’s upcoming school contact. Top Mastodon post listed radio frequencies ARISS uses.

• Top X post: Impressions 14,578, Interactions / Engagements 702
• Top Facebook post: Impressions 9,010,  Interactions / Engagements 190
• Top Instagram post: Impressions 390, Interactions / Engagements 29
• Top Mastodon post: Interactions / Engagements 16

ARISS Upcoming Events
Oct 11: Sekolah Kebangsaan Wangsa Maju Seksyen, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan Team
Oct 13: Covenant Christian Academy, W. Peabody, MA-ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

September 25:  Colegio Educación del Talento in Yerba Buena, Tucumán, Argentina supported an ARISS contact. A crowd of 115 students, volunteers and faculty watched youth as Andreas Mogensen answered 13 of their questions. 55 viewers tuned in to a livestream, which later garnered 100 other viewers. Prior to the contact, the online news sources La Gaceta and LaUnion published articles about the event, as did LV/12 radio and TV—the latter story is at

https://www.lv12.com.ar/colegio-educacion-del-talento/alumnos-del-colegio-educacion-del-talento-dialogaran-astronautas-n145761. LV/12 shared that the school rector said students could not believe it when they were notified of the chance to talk to an astronaut! The Radio Club of Tucuman prepared a teaser video that they posted 2 hours before the contact, which attracted a large number of viewers. The school strives to engage students in many extracurricular activities, among them a science club and multiple musical groups.

September 22: Escuela Preparatoria La Salle, a high school in Torreon Coahuila, Mexico hosted an ARISS contact with Jasmin Moghbeli, who answered 15 student questions. 400 people on hand witnessed this contact—the first one in Mexico! This school works with an elementary school, a middle school, and a university within the La Salle education group. All ages of students and guests crowded the university gym, even some from area public schools whose teachers asked to bring students “so more youth could enrich themselves from the experience.”  A girl who spoke with Moghbeli said she was “honored to be able to participate and ask the astronaut a question.” The ARISS radio telebridge station team streamed their actions controlling the radios and antennas, earning 190 live views and another 94 in two days’ time. The high school and Universidad La Salle Laguna posted news stories as did El Siglo de Torreon. An area resident and ham operator worked with the school to win this ARISS contact; his Twitter and Facebook posts garnered 545 views. La Salle students engaged in STEM-related activities and a conference with subject matter experts’ talks on astronomy and technology, such as José Manuel Pardo Regueiro’s talk, “Nuclear Physics and its Applications.”

September 21: Fifty people from the South West State University and State Technical University of Gomel successfully completed an ARISS contact with Sergey Prokopyev.  Mission Control-Moscow scheduled this ARISS contact and the ARISS-Russia team handled all other logistics including lessons on space. 

September 25:  Students at Harbor Creek School in Harborcreek, PA will get an early holiday present—a mid-December ARISS contact. Late last semester students engaged in a weather balloon launch and this week teacher Drew Mortensen and a student presented a program about it via Zoom to Livonia (MI) Amateur Radio Club.  The 42 members and guests heard about all aspects of students’ activities, in particular, the young group’s (named Advanced Technologies Group) work in building all parts of the balloon launch radio payload.

September 27: Youth traveled to the Technological University of Dublin (TUD), Ireland, and enjoyed doing some prep for their upcoming ARISS contact scheduled in October. The university had invited students from “our feeder primary and secondary schools.” The teachers planned to engage youth in how plants are grown in space, fundamentals of electronic circuits, and the relevance of radio communication as a constant in day-to-day life.  Their ARISS mentor Seamus McCague supported them, sharing radio communications experiences as a ham operator and showing them how ham radio will make the ARISS contact happen.

September 28:  The NASA EXPRESS ran a blurb in this week’s issue about ARISS opening a new window to accept ARISS Education Proposals to compete for an ARISS contact in second-half 2024. The issue went to 60,002 subscribers and will be shared through the Office of STEM Engagement’s social media. The latter reaches 404,220 @NASASTEM X Followers, 116,289 NASA STEM Facebook Followers, and 512,148 NASA STEM Pinterest Followers. ARISS-USA Education Director Tanya Anderson sent details about the window to 274 Space Foundation International Teacher Liaisons, 100 members of two Educator Space Camp Alumni Groups, and 1,200 members of the Astronomy Teachers Group.

ARISS Upcoming Events
Oct 6: 149 Secondary School, Baku, Azerbaijan–ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
Oct 6: Technological University Dublin, Ireland–ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team