January 14: ARISS-USA Education Director Kathy Lamont was featured at a Zoom meeting of the Nashua (NH) Area Radio Society. Her presentation, “Youth in Radio,” covered the many ways ham radio is used as a teaching tool in classrooms to engage youth in hands-on STEM. Attendees, totaling 35, learned how they could work with educators, and one posted, “Love the ideas and the excitement from both the presentation and the curriculum ideas.” The audience hailed from radio clubs in New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey. The event was recorded for posting on the club’s web site for others to view.
 
January 14: ARISS had highlighted in an earlier weekly report that 2 of the 25 photos NASA posted online as the “Best Space Station Science Pictures of 2021” were ones featuring ISS crew members supporting ARISS contacts. This week, ARISS team mate Ana Guzman explained that the article about the winning photos was posted also at the NASA Spanish web site.  She and a colleague had done the translating of the article from English to Spanish. The URL is: Las mejores fotos de las investigaciones a bordo de la Estación Espacial en el 2021 | Ciencia de la NASA. ARISS thanks NASA and Ana for this.  ARISS is pleased that the photos and information on the ARISS contacts are available now for Spanish-speaking readers.
 
January 13: ARISS-USA Education Director Kathy Lamont and ARISS Technical Mentor Fred Kemmerer hosted an ARISS Orientation Webinar. The event was for schools and education organizations selected recently for ARISS radio contacts to be held in the second half of 2022.  Educators from those groups and representatives of their area amateur radio clubs who will assist the education groups attended the webinar—a total of 24 people. The groups heard a review of what is expected of them and they got answers to their questions.
 
January 17: The ARISS Team is planning final details for a forum and an exhibit booth to be at the ARRL 2022 National Convention. It is February 10-13 in Orlando, FL, and is one of the larger ham radio conventions held every year in the US.
 
ARISS Upcoming Events   
 
January 25 Quantorium Childrens Technopark, Komsomolsk-on-Amur Russia, ARISS-Russia Team
January 31 Lewis Center for Education Research, ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
February 2 Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk Russia, ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team
February 3-5 Space Exploration Educators Conference, ARISS Forum, ARISS-US Team
February 4 Johannes-Kepler Gymnasium, Lebach, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team

January 8: ARISS-USA Director of Public Engagement Rita Dehart and a second member of the Tampa Amateur Radio Club staffed an ARISS exhibit table at the club’s hamfest, called TARCFest, in Tampa, Florida. The two described ARISS operations and activities with people stopping by the table. They distributed ARISS brochures to 32 particularly interested people.
 
January 11: ARISS distributed a news release announcing the schools and education organizations that were selected recently for ARISS radio contacts during the timeframe of July 1 through December 31, 2022. The groups were chosen by the ARISS-US Education Committee’s proposal review team after they analyzed the ARISS Education and Contact Proposal that all groups had prepared and submitted. To move forward in the processes of planning to host a scheduled ARISS contact with a crew member on the ISS, each group must develop and submit an equipment plan with the help of a newly assigned ARISS Technical Mentor. The schools and education organizations are:
 

• Buehler Challenger & Science Center                         Paramus, NJ
• Eaton Public Library                                                     Eaton, CO
  
• Davis Aerospace Technical High School                      Detroit, MI
• St. Stephen’s Episcopal School Houston                     Houston, TX
• Harris Middle School                                                    Spruce Pine, NC
  
• Kopernik Observatory & Science Center                      Vestal, NY
• Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, Vanderbilt          Nashville, TN
  
• Canterbury School of Fort Myers                                  Fort Myers, FL
  

 
January 5:  ARISS volunteer Gordon West worked with a fellow commentator for Ham Radio Crash Course, a weekly online program, to develop a 10-minute feature on ARISS SSTV. The segment, which attracted 4,857 viewers, focused on how to download ARISS SSTV images. The talk covered the types of antennas and radios to use, good techniques for downloading SSTV images, and how to track the ISS.  The commentator offers a YouTube channel, also. He presented a You Tube video each day of the December 2021 ARISS SSTV session to guide people wanting to download images. His YouTube viewership topped 44,202! The commentator plans to present future programs on ARISS SSTV, so Rosalie White shared with him the following ARISS statistics from the December session:
 
Number of Educators and Students Voluntarily Reporting Their Participation:

• Students, high school or lower grades = 277    
• Educators, high school or lower grades = 348
• Students, college or higher grades such as postgraduate or pre-service teacher = 310
• Educators, college or higher grades = 685

 
ARISS Upcoming Events   
 
January 25 Quantorium Children’s Technopark, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia, ARISS-Russia Team
Week of January 31 Lewis Center for Education Research, ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

January 4: Scouts Victoria in Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia hosted an ARISS contact with Mark Vande Hei during the week-long Victorian Scout Jamboree.  17 of the young people’s questions were answered with 100 people reported in attendance. The contact was livestreamed. The Jamboree enabled over 4,000 scouts, venturers, rovers and leaders to enjoy outdoor excitement and fun through challenging and inclusive programs. The Radio and Electronics Team provided support for the ARISS contact and for STEM-related activities, some on amateur radio, for scouts of all ages and abilities.
 
December 22: Two photos featuring ISS crew members engaging in ARISS activities on board the ISS were part of the 25 photos that NASA posted online as the “Best Space Station Science Pictures of 2021.” They were featured on NASA Twitter, also. One photo showed Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi carrying out an ARISS contact with students at Hisagi Junior High School in Zushi, Japan. A second photo featured Raja Chari speaking with students from Colegio Pumahue in Chile. ARISS is very proud of being presented as part of NASA science.
 
January 5: The ARRL Foundation awarded ARISS-USA the funding for the first year of a new two-year education initiative called the ARISS *STAR* Keith Pugh Memoriam Project. *STAR* is short for Space Telerobotics using Amateur Radio. ARISS honored Keith, who passed away in 2019, because he was one of ARISS’s star technical mentors. *STAR* goals are to improve and sustain ARISS STEM education outcomes through robotics for USA junior- and senior-high age youth. The hands-on activities will use APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) for youth to remotely command robots on *STAR* telerobotics closed courses to be developed.      
 
December 11: ARISS educator Melissa Pore gave a Small Sat Talk presentation to University of Southern Maine Student Satellite developers. Her talk featured what her high school students are learning this semester, such as payload options, design approaches, and resources for CubeSat developers in high school and their teachers.
 
January 1: ARISS was proud to announce that the ARISS SSTV Gallery now sports just over 150,000 Slow Scan TV (SSTV) images posted by thousands of individuals. SSTV sessions on the ISS first began in 2008 and the number of enthusiastic followers continued to grow over the years. The manager of the global team thanked the dedicated volunteers for the ARISS successes, reporting that the December year-end 2021 SSTV session garnered 15,897 posted images.
 
ARISS Social Media for December

ARISS Facebook

December ARISS Facebook followers totaled 7,638.    
December ARISS Twitter followers were 15,866, a 2% gain over November. 
December Instagram followers grew to 390.
December YouTube subscribers totaled 1,592.
 
Top Performing December Facebook Post over 12 days’ time -- reached 19,733 people
 
ARISS Upcoming Events   
 
Week of January 31   Lewis Center for Education Research, ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

December 16: Two German schools, Technisches Bildungszentrum Mitte (TBZ Mitte) in Bremen and Carl Prueter Oberschule in Sulingen hosted an ARISS radio contact with Matthias Maurer. Each school set up a ham radio station and each school’s students asked 5 questions. 23 students and teachers gathered to view the action and 10 classrooms holding 214 people watched the livestream. Media coverage included Radio Bremen Hörfunk, Radio Bremen TV, and RTL Nord’s livestream. The schools offered three livestreams for anyone to watch. Students at TBZ Mitte developed and built the school’s ham radio system. Project manager Jan Benje said, “Our goal was to involve as many students as possible across the training school. The technical students built the bracket to hold the antenna, the antenna and the student-built antenna control system were developed by our information electronics engineers, and the aerospace engineers worked out the questions for students to ask. Not all students could be there so technician students streamed the event.” The new ham radio station can be used in classes to receive weather satellites and the school may set up ham radio courses with help from the German Amateur Radio Club.
 
December 10:  K-8 students attending Savannah River Academy in Grovetown, GA interviewed Thomas Marshburn during their ARISS radio contact. He answered 20 questions. 117 students, 28 teachers, and 175 parents/guardians witnessed the event. US Congressman Rick Allen and Governor Brian Kemp sent the school congratulations letters. Students had enjoyed nearly a full year of a wide variety of STEM space and radio hands-on activities in preparation for their ARISS radio contact. Student Zion Newsome said, “I was in shock when first learning I would be able to ask questions of the space station’s occupants.” Media covering the events were The Augusta Chronicle (online video and article), The Augusta Press (online article), WRDW Channels 12 /26 (with video) and WJBF Channel 6 (with video). 

December 16: ARISS educator Drew Deskur heads the Kopernik Observatory and Science Center in Vestal, NY. It was one of several US groups to become a NASA Informal Education Community Anchor and to receive the Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions (TEAM II) Community Anchor Award. Funding from the Kopernik award is for its new Ready, Set, Go and Explore project targeting inner-city Binghamton Central Schools and rural Candor Central Schools. ARISS concepts are included in the new project’s curriculum. Kopernik hosts ARISS contacts at its summer camps. Regarding the TEAM II award, NASA Associate Administrator for STEM Mike Kincaid said, “NASA has bold, long-term goals, so it’s critically important that we reach students where they are, and create opportunities for them to experience those feelings of discovery and confidence that STEM engagement is really all about.”       
 
December 13: Wolfgang-Kubelka-Realschule (WKR) in Schondorf am Ammersee, Germany sponsored an ARISS contact with Matthias Maurer who answered 14 student questions. 380 people witnessed the event--300 were students in school rooms watching the livestream.  One radio station and one newspaper reporter attended.  WKR is part of the MINT (STEM) network with focuses on computer science, technology, natural science, and math. Studies leading up to the ARISS contact included life on the ISS, satellites, ISS research, balloon launches with onboard radio transmitter, and visits to the German Aerospace Center Satellite Ground Station and Columbus Control Center.

December 10:  Students at DLR_School_Lab (German Aerospace Center) Braunschweig in Germany talked with Matthias Maurer during their ARISS contact. Due to Covid, many students tied in from their homes. Maurer answered 19 student questions while 310 students and other viewers watched via a live stream, available at this link: https://youtu.be/0cGJuwnhaSI.  In the months leading up to the ARISS contact, over 2,000 youth ages 11-18 participated in hands-on experiments in aeronautics, satellite navigation, energy, and ham radio communications and enjoyed a virtual spacewalk.  

December 15: Frank Bauer and ARISS Education Director Kathy Lamont led an ARISS Webinar for Educators hosted by the ISS National Lab. Participants included 29 formal educators and 4 informal educators. The presentation covered how ARISS affects students, how ARISS STEM can be incorporated in classes, and how educators can submit education proposals for ARISS contacts. 100 had registered for the webinar and they will receive the URL for the recorded talk to watch at any time.
 
December 21: Berufliche Schule Direktorat 1 Nürnberg, in Nuremberg, Germany held an ARISS contact with Matthias Maurer; he answered 12 student questions. 21 educators and 187 students watched from various locations in the school via livestreaming. A newspaper reporter plans to prepare an article about the event.  The school offers courses in electrical engineering, electronics information technology and mechatronics, with many classes held in workshops and industrial settings. Student activities include making amateur radio contacts and building circuit boards for electronic projects.

December 26-31: Worldwide ARISS team members put together another enormously popular ARISS SSTV (Slow Scan TV, picture downlinks) session for educators, students, space enthusiasts, shortwave listeners, and ham radio operators. Images related to Lunar explorations were downlinked from the ISS by Cosmonauts. Images offered were suggested by ARISS volunteers around the globe.  3,720 people have downloaded 15,528 images that they posted to the ARISS SSTV Gallery at: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php.

December 23: ARISS educator Micol Ivancic and ARISS volunteer Fabrizio Carrai hosted an online webinar on how to receive ARISS Slow Scan TV (SSTV) transmissions on December 27-31. 20 people viewed their presentation. A second webinar was held on the 27th during an actual ISS pass when the crew was downlinking images. This allowed 8 viewers to follow along in receiving and downloading SSTV signals and to look at each person’s resulting images.
 
ARISS Upcoming Events   
TBD