January 24, 2023, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact between astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and students at the Brentwood Elementary School of Engineering located in Raleigh, NC. ARISS conducts 60-80 of these special amateur radio contacts each year between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses aboard the ISS.
Brentwood Magnet Elementary School of Engineering is located near downtown Raleigh and is part of the Wake County Public School System´s Magnet Programs. The school tries to inspire students´ interest in STEM, especially for those groups underrepresented in the STEM field. The school provides special engineering classes so that students are able to learn about engineering every day. The engineering challenges that students participate in are also related to their classes in language arts, math, science, and social studies. For instance, when pre-Kindergarten students are reading the story of the three little pigs, students work through a cycle of the engineering/design process to engineer a house that will withstand the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolf. In preparation for this ARISS contact, students have completed hands-on activities in the school´s MakerSpaces Labs that included coding space-related robots, and engineering rockets and parachutes that would meet certain NASA recommendations. Students have also met with a ham radio operator, guest speaker, and member of the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society.
This will be a telebridge contact via Amateur Radio allowing students to ask their questions of Astronaut Koichi Wakata, amateur radio call sign KI5TMN. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHz and may be heard by listeners that are within the ISS-footprint that also encompasses the telebridge station. The ARISS amateur radio ground station (telebridge station) for this contact is in Aartselaar, Belgium. The amateur radio volunteer team at the ground station will use the callsign ON4ISS, to establish and maintain the ISS connection. The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for January 26, 2023 at 12:31 pm EST (NC), 17:31 UTC.
As time allows, students will ask these questions:
1. Have you met any of the astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo Missions?
2. What made you decide to become an astronaut?
3. What does space look like from the ISS?
4. What types of jobs did you have before becoming an astronaut?
5. Is it scary to travel or live in space?
6. What do you do for fun while you are in space?
7. What type of plants are currently grown on the ISS? Are any of them food for astronauts?
8. How long will you stay on the ISS?
9. How do you get electricity in space?
10. When you are not training for a trip to the ISS what else do you do as an astronaut?
11. What kind of exercise do you do on the ISS and how often do you do it?
12. Have you been in space before? If so, how does your body react when you return to earth?
13. What is the most fun experiment you´ve worked on while in space?
14. What was your favorite class when you were in elementary school? Do you think it helped you become an astronaut?
15. What is the toughest and the best thing about being in space?
16. What activities require you to put on a spacesuit? How long does it take to put it on?
17. What is a problem you have had while in space? How did you solve it?
18. What kinds of experiments are you doing on the ISS?
19. Besides snow, are there any weather phenomena you can see from space?
20. What is the first thing you want to do when you get back to Earth?
Media Contact:
ARISS News Release No.23-02
Dave Jordan, AA4KN
ARISS PR
aa4kn@amsat.org