Category: Weekly Reports

August 18: The Cambridge Amateur Radio Club partnered with the Idea Exchange program at the Cambridge Public Library in Ontario, Canada to host an ARISS contact with Kjell Lindgren. An audience of 185 people watched at the outdoor contact site while Lindgren answered 9 student questions. 155 others watched via a live steam, and within a week, 684 people had watched a YouTube recording. Cambridge Amateur Radio Club members provided technical support for the ARISS contact.  TV and newspaper reporters came to cover the action, and media hits are: 

• Cambridge Today online news write up

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news/cambridge-students-make-radio-contact-with-nasa-astronaut-5713932

• CTV News posting

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/it-s-very-rare-for-canada-cambridge-amateur-radio-club-makes-contact-with-iss-1.6036454

• WAALI News posting

https://newswaali.com/its-very-rare-for-canada-cambridge-amateur-radio-club-contacts-iss-news-waali/

In preparation for the contact, local youth from kindergarten through sixth grade participated in a variety of STEAM activities sponsored by the Idea Exchange on subjects such as space, engineering, and various sciences.

August 20-21: About 5,000 ham radio operators and other radio enthusiasts gathered at the 2022 ARRL Southeastern Division Convention (the 3rd largest US ham event this year) at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, AL.  ARISS showcased a large booth both days supported by Frank Bauer, Janet Bauer, Dave Jordan, and Martha Muir with over 300 stopping by to talk—10% were educators and over 10% were youth.  They learned about the ARISS program and several ARISS education projects in development that will allow students to interact with robots and with sensor devices on the International Space Station. Several educators learned how to submit education proposals for an ARISS contact at their school. Frank presented a forum to a crowd of 60 people and reported high interest in the ARISS 2.0 effort, ARISS education programs, Kjell Lindgren’s radio activity, and future ARISS initiatives. Booth staff said that following the forum, many people stopped to say they appreciated hearing all about ARISS and to offer a thank you for ARISS activities. Before the convention, Frank met with four American Radio Relay League (ARRL) leaders about education ideas for ARISS and ARRL to consider collaborating on at facilities such as the US Space & Rocket Center.  

July 5-29: ARISS volunteer Melissa Pore presented ARISS and ARISS-related STEM activities at youth workshops during four weeks of the Washington Community Fellowship DC STEM Camps in Washington DC.  She led activities for 200 campers with lessons focused on satellites and Morse code, held demonstrations about radio antennas, and used STEM lesson resources from SCaN on the Deep Space Network and from the US Naval Academy. The youth worked with some satellite models, SCaN activity booklets, and Artemis activity books. The camp was free for underserved youth age 8 to 12.

ARISS Upcoming Events 
TBD

August 16: Last week’s report described the Isle of Thanet online news’ feature story on eight-year-old Isabella who, with help from her father, talked via his ham radio station with Kjell Lindgren using the ARISS radio. Since then, word of her radio contact spread around the world. The BBC Southeast prepared and broadcasted a video interview of Isabella and her father, which is posted at https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChU0oenDiD6/ and also a news item at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-62563215.amp. But that’s not all. More than 20 news services ran an item or picked up the BBC’s feature, and for instance, National Public Radio re-broadcasted her comment that she wants to be a “communications specialist” for NASA when she grows up. The list below is of URLs for some of the more major outlets’ stories.

CNN.com

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/17/uk/girl-iss-amateur-radio-scn-scli-intl-gbr/index.html

KOCO News 5 – Oklahoma City, OK 

https://www.koco.com/article/girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-using-ham-radio/40919892

KOVA News 4 – Tucson, AZ

https://www.kvoa.com/townnews/astronautics/8-year-old-girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-using-ham-radio/article_7ec7586a-6235-5277-963b-9dfd0e77ec06.html

The Goa Spotlight – Panjim, India

https://thegoaspotlight.com/2022/08/17/8-year-old-girl-talks-to-astronaut-using-dads-ham-radio/?quad_cc

Community 99-News Around You, WordPress site

https://community99.com/8-year-old-girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-via-ham-radio/

Metro 50 – the UK

https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/18/girl-8-makes-contact-with-iss-using-dads-ham-radio-and-gets-a-response-17207079/

KAKE – Wichita, KS

https://www.kake.com/story/47117133/8yearold-girl-chats-with-iss-astronaut-using-ham-radio

KIRO – Seattle WA

https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/my-names-isabella-8-year-old-girl-contacts-astronaut-iss-via-ham-radio/DSMIROEOMVCE5CDE6L2IPBNX5Q/

Gearrice – a tech news outlet

https://www.gearrice.com/update/8-year-old-girl-chatted-with-an-astronaut-in-space-via-amateur-radio/

KTVE Fox News – for areas near the borders of Arkansas/Louisiana/Mississippi

https://www.myarklamiss.com/news/top-stories/a-few-seconds-to-remember-8-year-old-girl-contacts-astronaut-at-international-space-station-via-ham-radio/

August 18: The Cambridge Public Library and Idea Exchange in Cambridge, ON, Canada hosted a successful ARISS contact.  Expect a full account about the event in next week’s report.

August 11: Cosmonaut Denis Matveev supported an ARISS contact held in the Chuvash Republic of Russia in the village of Shorshely. The village was sponsoring a festival celebrating and honoring the 60th anniversary of the first space flight by USSR pilot-cosmonaut Andrian Grigorievich Nikolaev. Participants of the radio contact included young cosmonauts of the Vostok detachment of the Shorshel Secondary School and young cosmonauts who are radio amateurs active with the children’s collective radio station Vostok-3. Chuvasia radio amateur operators set up a special ham radio event for the festival, talking over the airwaves to worldwide hams.

August 11: To the delight of many, ARISS modes on the ISS have expanded to allow operations on both Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS – digital communications) and voice repeater modes at the same time. Both types of operations are very popular within the ham community. The ARISS-US and ARISS-Russia teams worked together many weeks to secure APRS operation from the Service Module following the upmass of a second Kenwood D710GA radio. Frank Bauer stated, “Simultaneous operation of ARISS APRS and the voice repeater on ISS is transformative for ARISS and represents a key element of our ARISS 2.0 initiative, providing interactive capabilities 24/7 that inspire, engage and educate youth and lifelong learners—especially life-long learning in ham radio operations.” ARISS’s news release included Frank’s thanks to ARISS-Russia’s Sergey Samburov for working hard to help make the expanded operations happen.

August 8: NASA’s online Space Station Science Highlights for the week of August 8 carried an item on the recent ARISS radio contact hosted by Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, NY.  A photo featured Bob Hines at the ARISS radio. The report described preparatory lessons on radio, electricity and space that students participated in, and how ARISS helps inspire interest in STEM-related subjects. The URL is: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/space-station-science-highlights-08aug22.

August 15: A NASA.gov writer and editor translated a recent NASA posting titled “15 Benefits of ISS” into the Spanish language and published this in the online NASA Ciencia. One part of the article featured ARISS. The URL is: https://ciencia.nasa.gov/quince-maneras-en-que-la-estaci%C3%B3n-espacial-internacional-beneficia-la-humanidad-en-la-tierra.  ARISS thanks NASA for providing this to Spanish-language viewers. 

ARISS Upcoming Events 
Aug 24 Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital-Vanderbilt, Nashville TN ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

August 10: Summer in or near Vestal, NY means hundreds of campers between grades 2 and 12 are enjoying Kopernik Observatory and Science Center’s weekly STEM camps. This summer’s boys and girls experienced a myriad of science activities with the help of School Programs Coordinator and Science Teacher for Kopernik, Tish Bresee, a NASA Solar System Ambassador.  Examples of some of the lessons included how to use a telescope, launch and track high altitude balloons, make ham radio contacts, all with a tie to ARISS and what it’s like being an astronaut on the ISS. This past week’s camp, “Welcome Aboard the ISS,” saw 19 campers thrilled by the chance to ask Bob Hines a question; he replied to 19. An excited gathering of 60 attendees at the Center, including youth from a previous week’s camp (“Secrets of Code” on coding, Morse code, and electrical circuits) watched the activity. TV stations and a cable station (WIVT, WICZ, WBCH) covered the ARISS contact. The livestream garnered 110 viewers—youth who’d been at earlier camps, along with the general public. Within 48 hours, 308 people had watched a recording. The URL (begin at 9 minutes) is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OadnQ3UX_s.  Two URLs for media hits are:

https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/top-stories/international-space-station-makes-contact-with-local-observatory/  and

https://www.wicz.com/story/47070053/students-at-kopernik-speak-to-astronaut-aboard-iss

August 8: A week-long workshop called Summer Space School was held at the Space Research Institute, the space science studies department at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia. Organizers received support from the Roscosmos State Corporation. Study areas for youth coming from many locales ranged from astronomy and astrophysics to the origin of the Universe and exoplanets. Students could choose subjects tied to astronautics, space communications and remote sensing, space medicine and biology, and scientific journalism. They engaged in a simulated trip to, and landing on, Mars and planned a settlement in which to live and do scientific research. On one day of the space school week, 70 students participated in a successful ARISS contact with Sergey Korsakov. They had studied the About Gagarin from Space set of lessons led by the ARISS-Russia team.

August 8: The Isle of Thanet News, an online UK news service featured Isabella, an eight year old from Broadstairs. Her father, a ham operator was lucky late one night to hear Kjell Lindgren making radio contacts on the ARISS radio in the ISS with ham operators. Matt’s ham license allows him to help others use his radio under his direction. He woke his daughter to try for a short chat with Lindgren, and she snagged him. Isabella said: “It was amazing to contact the ISS and it made my night and day. I was elated when I heard an astronaut on the ISS. After we spoke on the radio, NASA contacted us for a picture of me, which they sent to Astronaut Kjell and to my surprise, Kjell sent me back an image of my picture on his iPad floating in the ISS!”  The article’s URL is: https://theisleofthanetnews.com/2022/08/10/broadstairs-eight-year-old-to-feature-on-nasa-website-after-radio-chat-with-iss-astronaut/.  NASA plans to run a story about this on its web pages. On August 16, a British Broadcasting Company News reporter interviewed Isabella, and the segment should air soon.

August 10:  The ARISS-Russia team conducted an ARISS radio contact at the Ufa State Aviation Technical University in Ufa, Russia. The 100 youth, ages 14 to 17, came from various regions of Russia. The ARISS-Russia team taught them the About Gagarin From Space lessons. Oleg Artemiev supported the radio contact. 

August 2: ARISS educator Diane Warner gave a talk about ARISS and the ISS to a group of Lancaster, OH community members who attended a presentation given by her club, the All Terrain Amateur Radio Association. The club’s intent was to introduce the community to amateur radio and invite them to sign up for an upcoming amateur radio license class. 

August 6-7: At the 2022 ARRL Pacific Northwest DX Convention in Spokane, WA, ARRL-ARISS Board Committee Chair Mark Tharp set up a display table sporting ARISS’ roll-up banner, handouts, and business cards. 140 attendees came from 12 states and British Columbia, and they took home all but a few of the ARISS business cards. This annual convention features programs of interest to ham radio operators who enjoy making radio contacts with hams in countries located in very remote parts of the globe.  

ARISS Upcoming Events 
Aug 18 Cambridge Public Library & Idea Exchange, Cambridge ON ARISS contact, ARISS Canada Team

July 28: Seven Challenger Learning Center (CLC) locales hosted 2022 summer camp students at these learning institutions to spark interest in STEM. Youth at these seven CLCs spoke with Bob Hines during an ARISS radio contact; he answered 18 questions. Eight-year-old Libby, according to a WABI-TV reporter in Bangor, said, “I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut and talk to one at least one time and this is a once in a lifetime experience.”  364 campers and community members watched the action at the seven sites or via the livestream. WCSH-TV of Bangor, ME, quoted Challenger Learning Center of Maine’s director Sarah Raymond-Boyan: [This is] “that spark to get them excited in science whether it’s through space or through something else” [that aids them] “just to know that it could be them up there someday.”  Staff at the Challenger Learning Center national office in Washington DC set up the livestream and posted a very nice blog so viewers could access the video.  After 7 days, 3,443 people had viewed the recording.  See: https://www.challenger.org/2022/07/29/live-conversation-with-astronaut-bob-hines-aboard-the-international-space-station/.  In addition to many kinds of STEM lessons, some CLCs invited ham radio operators to show youth different aspects of radio and communications, talk about codes, and try sending Morse code characters, which the CLC declared “a big hit!”    
CLC hosts were:

• Buehler Challenger & Learning Center-Paramus NJ
• Challenger Learning Center of Maine-Bangor ME
• Challenger Learning Center-Louisville KY
• Challenger Learning Center of Northwest Indiana, Hammond IN
• Town of Ramapo Challenger Learning Center, Ramapo NY
• Challenger Learning Center of Twin Tier Region, Allegany NY and
• Challenger Learning Center at the Scobee Education Center, San Antonio College, San Antonio TX.

August 3: The Swiss Guide and Scout Movement in Bern, Switzerland hosted an ARISS contact for scouts participating in the Swiss National Scout Jamboree in the Goms Valley.  The 35,000 male and female scouts ranged in age from 7 to 28.  During the ARISS radio contact, Samantha Cristoforetti replied to 17 scouts’ questions and spoke in English, French, Italian and German.  The video is at: https://youtu.be/NvqCSISnTvU. Close to 2,000 people watched live—and in two days’ time, views of the recording skyrocketed to 6,959!  During the two-week event, youth participated in various STEM activities such as space communication technology projects, demos of HF, VHF, and UHF ham radio band activities, and making radio contacts—including Earth-Moon-Earth radio contacts—communicating with another ham operator by bouncing your radio signal off the Moon (as a passive reflector) to another ham operator.

July 30: NASA’s 2022 International Space Station Benefits for Humanity publication was released while the ARISS team was exhibiting at the ISS R & D Conference in Washington, DC. One of the articles recognized ARISS as one of the groups “Bringing Humanity Along for the Ride.”  ARISS feels very honored by this recognition.  NASA posted the article on its web site, also, along with a fast-action video summarizing the groups who “bring humanity along.” The posting is at: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/direct-link-to-space.

July 25-29: ARISS educator Gina Kwid from Eagle, ID attended The Space Age on the Space Coast professional development workshops at the Astronauts Memorial Foundation Center for Science Education in the Kennedy Visitors Center at Cape Canaveral, FL.  35 K-12 educators interacted with education specialists, historians, astronauts, and engineers. In addition to learning many things, Gina gave a talk about ARISS.  The workshops (made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks Grant Program and the National Council for History Education) are meant to help educators shape classrooms that engage students in historical inquiry of the Space Age era. Workshop sponsors wrote: [Educators came to] “the starting point for America’s exploration of the universe” to investigate “the intersection of race, gender, politics, technology, and the earth as a living system.”

July 30: The ARISS-Russia team conducted a session of lessons called “About Gagarin From Space” with 40 youth in Almetyevsk in Tatarstan, Russia. The successful contact was supported by crew member Sergei Korsakov.

ARISS Social Media

July 2022–Top ARISS Facebook Reach and Top ARISS Tweet

Facebook post on releasing (during an EVA) 10 radio satellites built by ARISS university students in Russia
Twitter post on ARISS contact at Kitaogura Elementary School in Uji, Japan

As of July 31, 2022, slight gains were made over last month on every ARISS social media platform; total followers were:  

• ARISS Twitter—16,957
• ARISS Facebook—7,758
• ARISS Instagram—435
• ARISS YouTube—1.7k

July 2022 Facebook

ARISS Upcoming Events 
Aug 8 Space Research Institute-Russian Academy of Sciences summer school, Moscow Ru  ARISS contact,  ARISS Russia Team
Aug 10 Ufa State Aviation Tech University, Ufa Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS Russia Team
Aug 10 Kopernik Observatory & Science Center, Vestal, NY  ARISS contact, ARISS US Team

July 21:  Kitaogura Elementary School in Uji, Japan, with 207 students, celebrated its 50-year anniversary by planning lessons for, and hosting, an ARISS contact. For their exciting radio contact with Kjell Lindgren, an audience of 70 watched the youth as he answered 20 of their questions. Reporters from five newspapers came to the event. A video recording for public viewing is at: http://www.ariss.jp/8n350k/IMG_5634.MP4.  Students spent several months on a variety of lessons preparing for the event. For fifth graders interested in amateur radio, members of the KANSAI ARISS Project and the Japan Amateur Radio League-Kyoto Club mentored the girls and boys in radio communications protocol and making radio contacts over the airwaves.

July 25-28: ARISS team members Frank Bauer, Dave Taylor, and Kelly Cammarano represented ARISS at the ISS R&D Conference in Washington DC, setting up and staffing an exhibit area. Other ARISS team members, Ana Guzman, Randy Berger, and Melissa Pore helped at the booth for portions of the days. They discussed ARISS with an estimated 300 individuals. During daytime and evening receptions, Frank networked with many space industry people and was happy to talk about ARISS and potential future activity. 

June 25: The All Terrain Amateur Radio Association set up a Field Day exhibit in a city park in Lancaster, OH; the display touted ARISS, the club, and amateur radio.  Field Day is an exercise for ham radio operators to practice emergency communications skills in places without commercial power.  Over 50 people came to the Field Day and saw the poster board. A gentleman who leads a youth group with a STEM focus talked at length to ARISS educator Diane Warner about ARISS contacts. The American Radio Relay League Section Manager (an official at the state level) drove a bit over an hour to come to the Field Day event and discussed the successes of a recent ARISS school contact that was sponsored at Bellefontaine, OH.

ARISS Upcoming Events 
July 30 Youth in Almetyevsk, Tatarstan, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS Russia Team
July 30 State Aviation Technical University, Ufa, Russia   ARISS contact, ARISS Russia Team
Aug 3  Swiss Guide & Scout Movement, Bern, Switzerland  ARISS contact, ARISS Europe Team

July 11-15:  ARISS Director of Education Kathy Lamont and ARISS educator Kelly Cammarano gave short talks about ARISS on day two of a professional development seminar for educators. They explained a little about the ARISS program, resources on ARISS’ web pages for educators, the ARISS Education Proposal, and the timeframe that ARISS will open the next window to accept proposals.  The American Radio Relay League, one of ARISS’ sponsors, put on the week-long seminar in Newington, CT for eight educators from around the US.  They did hands-on lessons on satellite communications; sensors and an Arduino board—programming sensors on a breadboard to collect and transmit data to be shared by APRS (automatic packet reporting system); and working with that data—how to plot and analyze it. The women felt they could take many of the hands-on STEM lessons back to their classrooms. Kathy, from Virginia, and Kelly, from California, have each hosted ARISS contacts in the past at their schools.

July 19-22: The 2022 ARISS-International working group held its annual meeting (online) of world ARISS Officers, ARISS Delegates, and ARISS volunteers. 34 of the team attended. Areas represented by team members were Australia, Japan, Canada, the US, and many countries in Europe. Day 1 presentations included an overview of the last 12 months of ARISS’ successes such as great outcomes from lessons done with US and European students, and some of ARISS’ planning and activities leading to future major projects. Day 2 and Day 3 topics focused on three main areas that define ARISS’ initiatives dealing with education, operations, and development. An update was shared on all education programs funded by grants won in 2021, such as the development of hands-on electronic kits that enhance the introducing of electronics in the classroom. Progress was reported on the ARISS *STAR* program where students will engage in tele-robotics and using ham radio to control the robots. A talk on operations covered several ARISS activities such as the very popular Slow Scan TV (SSTV—picture links), events that educators report have proven to spark students’ interest in ISS operations. The last day of the meeting included future plans and activities to consider and the 2023 meeting.

July 21: During a spacewalk, Oleg Artemyev deployed 10 satellites on behalf of the ARISS-Russia team. Sergey Samburov, leader of the team, monitored the deployment from Russia’s Mission Control area. Students at South West State University (SWSU) in Kursk built eight of the satellites and students at Ryazan State Radio Engineering University built two of the satellites. Details about the satellites were in an earlier weekly report.

July 21: ARISS learned about viewer numbers of the “Amateur Space Radio” episode of Houston, We Have a Podcast, which first aired on July 7. The podcast featured Courtney Black, of the ISS National Lab, talking about her past experience as a teacher who hosted an ARISS contact. Metrics received are:

• Apple Podcasts—garnered 1,600 unique listeners
• SoundCloud—received 350 plays and
• Google got 250 plays.

July 23: An ARISS contact was hosted for people taking part in the Celebration of the frigate “Nadezhda,” in Vladivostok, Russia. Listeners learned about ARISS and heard cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev support the ARISS radio contact. The ARISS-Russia team coordinated the activity.  

ARISS Upcoming Events 

July 28: Buehler Challenger & Science Center, Paramus NJ  ARISS contact, ARISS-US team

July 13: Students who took part in STEM activities that are held at Il Cielo Itinerante (ICI) spoke with Samantha Cristoforetti during an ARISS radio contact; she answered 19 questions. For the contact, the ICI had invited youth from various Italian cities to come to the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in Matera, Italy, which hosted the contact events. ICI has close ties to the ASI’s Center for Space. 200 people attended the event and 194 watched the livestream. ARISS-International Vice Chair Oliver Amend wrote that ESA Education staff appreciated the ARISS-US team who, in very early morning hours, operated the ARISS radio telebridge station at Goddard Space Flight Center to support the contact. He added, “This was an important event for the ARISS-Europe team because of its collaboration with ESA Education.” ICI, an Italian non-profit association, was established with the goal of providing STEM classes to disadvantaged children ranging in age 9 to 14. ICI visits all regions of Italy to work with students where the need is greatest, setting up practical science lessons and professional telescopes for guided observations of the sky. 

July 13: The 2nd Sayama Group Saitama Council Scouts Association of Japan in Saitama hosted an ARISS contact for girl scouts and boy scouts of various ages who spoke with Kjell Lindgren. He answered 16 different scouts’ questions. An audience of nearly 100 watched the action, including 15 scout leaders and ham radio volunteers. The YouTube garnered 99 views; the URL is (begin at 1:07 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-bWCL_xzpE. Media representatives covering the event came from a cable TV station and an area newspaper. During the day of the ARISS contact, the scout association sponsored a class on electrical topics and on earning an amateur radio license, and prior to the contact, youth participated in scout activities related to space, electricity, and amateur radio.  

July-August: The Buehler Challenger & Science Center in Paramus, NJ, will host an ARISS contact in late July. The Center planned summer STEM camps for three weeks in July and early August for youth in kindergarten through high school. Activities for girls of middle school age, and boys and girls of junior high and high school age, included simulated space missions in the Center’s simulators, building and launching model rockets, learning about “barrier-breaking women in STEM,” designing and creating flying objects,  and design challenges.   

July 15: Students came to Ufa, Russia to participate in the 11th International Aerospace School named for test pilot and cosmonaut U.N. Sultanov. The young people studied a set of About Gagarin From Space lessons, and the highlight was an ARISS radio contact. Oleg Artemyev supported the ARISS contact; the ARISS-Russia team coordinated it.  

ARISS Upcoming Events
July 19-22 ARISS-International Annual Meeting, online, full ARISS world team
July 21: Kitaogura Elementary School, Uji, Japan ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan team                                    

July 7:  For an episode named Amateur Space Radio, host Gary Jordan of NASA’s “Houston, We Have a Podcast” interviewed Education Project Manager Courtney Black at the ISS National Lab (INL). Prior to joining INL in 2020, she taught at a school that hosted an ARISS contact.  The podcast covered many facets of ARISS, her school experiences coordinating the ARISS contact, and how it had come about. She recalled that beforehand, she’d suggested to her school a year-long space curricula; the idea was put on hold. A while later, the nearby Ft. Myers Radio Club contacted the school district about ARISS contacts. The district brought Black and the club together and soon, she submitted an ARISS Education Proposal, and then her school was selected for a contact.  During this podcast she re-counted things that happened during the ARISS contact and ended with sharing a former student’s comment, a junior at the time. The young lady told a news reporter, “…this was the catalyst; this was what started me on my trajectory to become an astronaut.” Black said, “…it wasn’t until I saw how it [ARISS] ignited their passions that I realized space inspires: it reaches everyone.”

June 24-26: The ARISS-Europe team put on a strong presence at Ham Radio 2022, an annual convention in Friedrichshafen, Germany with attendance totaling 10,200. ARISS-International Vice Chair Oliver Amend presented three ARISS talks from the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club (DARC) national organization’s stage in the main conference hall. The education forums covered lesson ideas and the Matthias Maurer ARISS school contacts, and one forum was an in-depth seminar. A fourth forum was on doing experiments tied to space. For a fifth forum, Amend invited the Johannes-Kepler Gymnasium (German high school) students and staff to talk about the ARISS contact they hosted. Attendance at all presentations totaled 280. The ARISS team staffed an exhibit booth and talked to 250 people, including some from ESA. ARISS shared a booth with Germany’s AMSAT society that had helped with Maurer’s ARISS school contacts. Booth staff included Amend, ARISS educator Mic Ivancic, DARC’s education team, AMSAT members, and AATiS (a German association of teachers and engineers who developed STEM activities using Amateur Radio on the ground and in space). 

July: The Eaton (CO) Public Library hosted an ARISS contact in June and the staff continues to advertise to the community a summer-long reading program tied to space. The library is also sponsoring its Starship Artemis Game Nights (in-person and online) for teens and adults. 

July 9: An ARISS radio contact took place at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University in Moscow, Russia.  More details will be available for next week’s report.

ARISS Social Media

June 2022–Top ARISS Facebook Reach and Top ARISS Tweet:  both, a post on a Slow Scan TV session

As of June 30, 2022, slight gains were made over May on each ARISS social media platform; total followers were:  

• ARISS Twitter—16,816
• ARISS Facebook—7,664
• ARISS Instagram—433
• ARISS YouTube—1.68k

June 2022 Facebook

ARISS Upcoming Events 

July 13 Il Cielo Itinerante, ASI Center for Space, Matera, Italy  ARISS contact,  ARISS-Europe team
July 13 2^nd Sayama Grp Saitama Council Scouts, Saitama Japan  ARISS contact, ARISS-Japan team
July 16 Celebration of Frigate Nadezhda, Vladivostok, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia team   

June 27: An online show, “Tank Radio,” featured a talk with Frank Bauer. He discussed ARISS’ new education programs, details about the ARISS radio system on the ISS, and how Astronaut Kjell Lindgren has been making radio contacts with ham operators who are very thrilled to talk to him.  175 people watched the live podcast, and within four days, 40 more people had viewed the recording.

June 24-26 The ARISS-Europe team presented three stage talks, a forum, and a teachers’ seminar at Ham Radio 2022, a large annual convention held in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The team staffed an exhibit booth, also and more details will be available for next week’s report.

June 24: Frank Bauer networked with Courtney Black, Education Project Manager at the ISS National Lab, updating her on the latest on ARISS education programs. The updates were in preparation for her being on “Houston, We Have a Podcast” to talk about formal and informal teachers’ interest in ARISS. More details on the podcast will be in next week’s report.

July 19-22: The annual ARISS-International Meeting will be held via Zoom due to continuing COVID concerns. ARISS-International delegates and team members will present and discuss topics on operations, development, and education initiatives, among others. More information will follow in future reports.

ARISS Upcoming Events 
July 9 Bauman Moscow State Technical U., Moscow, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia team
July 13 Il Cielo Itinerante, ASI Center for Space, Matera, Italy ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe team
July 16 Celebration of Frigate Nadezhda, Vladivostok, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia team   

June 22: Youth at Eaton Public Library in Eaton, CO had the privilege of talking with Kjell Lindgren during their ARISS radio contact. They asked 16 questions before the ISS traveled over the horizon. 233 people attended the event or watched the livestream. In 5 days’ time, 254 people had viewed the recording.  The New Hampshire News and Public Opinion Pros, two online news outlets, carried stories about the contact. The library’s livestream is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81zMIvrAnLU.  Days prior to the radio contact, library staff welcomed area students to a week-long Space Camp where they enjoyed soda-can-propelled rockets, Pin the Planet on the Solar System, Galaxy Slime, and Botly the Coding Robot. Ham operators from the Weld Amateur Radio Society taught the youth about ISS orbits and radio communications.

June 17: Students at South West State University (SWSU) in Kursk, Russia in conjunction with ARISS-Russia, designed and built eight Tsiolkovsky SWSU satellites. Some were launched to the ISS in February and some in June. Oleg Artemyev prepped all satellites, connecting them to the Service Module’s antenna feed device, and turned them on during orbits over Korolyov (Russian Mission Control Center) for controllers to monitor. They heard telemetry, confirming satellites’ operability. SWSU will post circuit board diagrams for other students to study. The mission of SWSU’s satellites is to: create a peer-to-peer information network, study Earth’s magnetic field and radio noise in outer space, and transmit photos and voice messages (each satellite’s phrase is different) in eight languages. Two other satellites were built by Ryazan State Radio Engineering University and were launched to the ISS. The Tsiolkovsky-Ryazan devices carry transmitters that can calibrate the sensitivity of radio telescopes at Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory at the Astro-Space Center of the Physical Institute. These two satellites can emit radio signals to aid the study of the ionosphere’s radio wave propagation. All satellites were named Tsiolkovsky satellites to honor what would have been Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s (Father of Russian Rocketry) 165th birthday. It is hoped that during a spacewalk in about a month, Oleg Artemyev will launch the satellites, which would orbit for about 1.5 years.

June 12-17: A popular STEM event offered at 2022 Youth on the Air (YOTA) Region 2 Camp was launching high-altitude and mid-altitude balloons with radio payloads. The camp, held at the National Voice of America Museum in West Chester Township, OH, hosted 21 youth ages 14 to 25. ARISS educator Neil Rapp, leader of the week-long camp, reported, “Balloon #1 reached 97,000’. We tracked it, 30 miles away in a field, recovering it all, including a video camera and biology experiment. Balloon #2, with an APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) and WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter) beacon, was tracked hovering at 30,000’.” Students had engaged in hands-on lessons: how to build and protect ham radio payloads that transmit digital telemetry, attach ropes and lines, study weather issues for launch, and use telemetry to track the balloon’s progress and health.

June 15: Kjell Lindgren spent some of his leisure time this past week using ARISS’ InterOperable Radio System on the ISS to talk with ham operators on Earth. Then he decided to make radio contacts during the biggest annual on-the-air ham radio activity—ARRL Field Day—and at the last minute, announced this in a Tweet. Many hundreds of ham operators loved trying to hear him on the air, and his Tweet got 536 Likes. Amateur radio operators are some of the biggest fans of astronauts and space. Kjell generated a huge amount of goodwill and excitement.    

ARISS Upcoming Events 
July 9 Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia, ARISS-Russia team