Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact with astronauts. ARISS is the Group that puts together special amateur radio contacts between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses on the International Space Station. (ISS)
The contact was live streamed by the GRHub Network as a test stream onto Echolink (ZS1I-L), AllStar (49355) and the 145.550 Mhz Simplex Link in the Mossel Bay area as scheduled for February 23, 2022 at 10:31 am EST (New Jersey). This was a direct contact via amateur radio between students at the Sussex County Charter School for Technology, Sparta, New Jersey and Astronaut Mark Vande Hei, amateur radio callsign KG5GNP. Students took time to ask questions. Amateur Radio operators, using the call sign KD2YAQ operated the ham radio ground station for the contact.
You can listen to the contact by clicking HERE. (MP3 Format)
Sussex Charter School for Technology (SCCST) is a STEM-focused, rural middle school in Sparta, NJ, serving 225 students. In preparation for this ARISS contact, through hands-on activities and class instruction, students worked with the local HAM radio club, high school, and university Physics departments to learn more about radio communications and solar influence on such communications. Members of the Sussex County Amateur Radio Club are supplying the direct contact equipment and will be conducting the ISS radio contact. New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has partnered with the school to introduce modules on space weather, solar cycles and ionospheric phenomena into their curriculum. Faculty members of NJIT’s amateur radio club, K2MFF, are founding members of HamSCI, and will lead the NJIT-SCCST collaboration and assist in the ARISS event and follow-up activities. Sussex County Technical School is their neighboring vocational/technical high school.
The following questions were asked and answered:
1. Do you have any telescopes on the ISS and, if so, how far can they see?
2. In the event of space debris, asteroids, or solar flares
collisions, what are the safety protocols or systems to ensure the
astronaut's/cosmonaut's safety in situations like that?
3. How do you exercise on the space station if there’s no gravity?
4. What science experiments are you working on that will have an impact on the future?
5. How do you feel about private space companies trying to make space travel open to civilians?
6. What is the best space food you’ve eaten, and do you
notice any improvement in the quality of the food since the Deep Space
food challenge started?
7. How often do you need to communicate with the Earth (Mission control)?
8. What would you do if the communication with Mission Control broke down and you couldn't communicate with Earth?
9. Being that you see 16 sunrises and sunsets in each day, how do you regulate your sleep schedule?
10. What steps are taken on the ISS to shield you from the pathway of the Sun's radiation?
12. Who put the first pieces of the International Space Station together and will any of it be reused after the mission ends?
13. How do astronauts maintain good hygiene on the ISS if there are no showers?
14. What happens if an astronaut gets a serious virus or other illness while they are on the ISS?
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the ISS National Lab-Space Station Explorers, Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) and NASA’s Space communications and Navigation program. The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics topics. ARISS does this by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators, parents, and communities take part in hands-on learning activities tied to space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org.
- ARISS
Ed. - The test transmission was a great success and will future space audio transmissions be streamed on the GRHub Network. I will try to issue prior notifications of such events on the GRHub Network Blog. So listen out for space and satellite transmissions on the GRHub Network in future!
