• Oct 8:  Bampton School in Devon, UK hosted an ARISS contact for students with Drew Morgan who answered 17 questions.  An audience of 175 watched the action.  Media coverage included the BBC-TV, two regional TV channels, and three radio stations.  The contact was live-streamed. A YouTube video was made from the BBC-TV cameraperson’s footage and can be found at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAZm3FJazR8  The school’s ARISS- and STEM-related lessons were part of a program named “A Term of Space.”
  

• Oct 8: Luca Parmitano talked with students at Collège Robert Doisneau in Sarralbe, France during their ARISS contact.  He spoke in fluent French and answered 20 questions. A crowd of 400 people were present; special visitors included city hall and region officials along with a region academic inspector. The contact was webcast to 99 colleges in France. Media on hand represented Regional TV France 3, Mirabelle TV, Regional Radio France Bleu, and the newspaper, Le Republicain Lorain.
  

• Oct 4: Woodridge Middle School in High Ridge, MO will sponsor an ARISS contact in late 2019. To publicize their ARISS activity, teachers set up an ARISS table at the St. Louis Science Center’s “Stranger Things” exhibit.  They handed out ARISS flyers and stickers, and 300 people stopped to talk. 
  

• Sep 7: Space Station Explorers Senior Education Manager Dan Barstow of the ISS National Lab gave the keynote banquet speech at the ARRL New England Division Convention in Boxboro, MA.  The speech, which went over very well, took the audience (250 adults, 15 students and 10 educators) on a simulated mission to the ISS and highlighted where the ham radio set up and antennas are located.  He described “the power of combining ham radio and space exploration into a magical elixir to engage students.”  Dan said of the Q&A portion, “They all asked good questions and appreciated how Amateur Radio on the ISS appeals to younger folks.”
  

 

• Oct 12:  ARISS Mentor Charlie Sufana gave a talk about ARISS at the Melbourne Hamfest in Melbourne, FL. Twelve people were quite attentive, including some students.
  

• Oct 4: ARISS Mentor Norm Thorn donates ISS-Above units to schools he mentors.  One went to Oakwood School in Morgan Hill, CA, which will have an ARISS contact in first half 2020.  The unit was deployed in the school office, which gets “a fair bit of student and parent traffic.”  Roofers were work soon on top of the building putting up the ham radio mast, antenna, and receiver preamplifier.
  

• Oct 1:  The Milan Amateur Radio Group in Milan, Italy, got an audience of 25 including several students for an ARISS talk.  Miss Micol Invancic, a teacher and ARISS volunteer who is passionate for space, presented a multimedia presentation covering the ARISS radio station, how ARISS radio contacts work, the passion students have for space, and Luca Parmitano as ISS commander.  A man in the audience said, “The almost two-hour talk went by without attendees realizing it, and like an exciting spacewalk, it enhanced the club members’ knowledge of STEM and space.”
  

 

• Oct. 9 - 10: The Moscow Aviation Institute experiment, MAI-75, operating from on board the ISS, downlinked Slow Scan TV (SSTV) images allowing hams and space enthusiasts on Earth to download them for a space history lesson.  Over 807 images were posted at the ARISS SSTV Gallery (https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/) for the world to view.  
  

• Oct 5: ARISS Mentor Tony Hutchinson in Australia was featured in an online article by the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC). The quite lengthy write-up covered Tony’s 30 years of dedication to ARISS and unique relationships in the NASA field and ARISS family that he’s developed during those years.  ABC also featured Tony on the evening ABC News broadcast.
  

          Upcoming Events     

• Oct 14: Students at two Italian schools, S.M. Calvino-Istituto Comprensivo Settimo IV in Settimo Torinese and Istituto Comprensivo Statale Don Milani in Monza will have an ARISS contact with Luca Parmitano.

• Oct. 17: Istituto Comprensivo Statale Diego Valeri in Campolongo Maggiore, Italy along with Istituto Comprensivo Ladispoli1 in Ladispoli, Italy will together host a contact with Luca Parmitano.

• Oct. 18: Science Days, a special event at Science & Technologie e.V. in Teningen, Germany, will feature an ARISS contact with Luca Parmitano.

 

• Oct 18-20: ARISS-US team members will give ARISS presentations at the annual AMSAT-NA Symposium in Arlington, VA.

• Sep 27: ARISS volunteers Darrell Wilson and Norm Thorn gave an ARISS presentation at the Vermont Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles, CA.  Faculty members, educators from the USC Young Scientists Program (YSP), and 91 third through fifth graders took part.  The school will have an ARISS contact sponsored by YSP in late October. The youth engaged in a “gallery walk” of ISS-related photos such as ones showing ISS research experiments; students formulated questions to pose about these. They got on the air to ask questions of area ham operators. The youth handled ham equipment and antennas and learned how the ISS is tracked.  They received NASA stickers and bookmarks. A teacher commented on the students’ high level of involvement, saying they were “totally into it” and excited by the upcoming ARISS contact. The producer of the USC Annenberg Media Center was there and plans to do a radio interview following the school’s ARISS contact.   

• Oct 1:  Sonoma County Main Library in Santa Rosa, CA hosted an ARISS radio contact for youth from Santa Rosa Middle School with Nick Hague.  He answered 17 student questions. Over 100 people attended the day’s events and over 150 watched the live-stream. Media coverage was done by the Press-Democrat, the largest area paper, and an area radio station.  The library staff had sponsored Star Parties and a city-wide STEM arts contest.  They distributed information to thousands of people through packets going to all of the area schools and because of posters and flyers handed out the month before at all of the library branches.  The area ham operators presented talks and gave area schools the ISS-Above kits and ISS-Above’s accompanying astronomy lessons plans.

 

• Oct. 1: River Ridge High School in Port St. Richey, FL has been engaging students in preparations for their upcoming ARISS contact. A StarLab planetarium dome was purchased and many of the school’s classes used it as a starting point for their ARISS-related STEM activities. This week, the StarLab will be taken to Hudson Elementary School for younger students.  A MakerSpace Challenge was sponsored for high schoolers to build hand-held antennas to use in upcoming radio transmitter hunts. From September 17 to November 15, a “Spot the ISS” contest will be held for students to download the ISS Finder app to their phones, learn how to spot the ISS, and take photos of the ISS to display in the school’s media center. In December, students in Earth Space Science classes will work in groups to build ISS models.  The school purchased two different food dehydrators for students to use, do taste testing, and track the results. Last week, space was integrated into movie night and a dance that featured a laser show of shooting stars.

 

• Oct 2:  A school in the United Arab Emirates had a successful ARISS contact with the Space Flight Participant.

 

• Oct 8:  Collège Robert Doisneau students in Sarralbe, France will have had an ARISS contact with Luca Parmitano and details will be in next week’s report.

 

• Oct 8:  Alexander Skvortsov supported an ARISS contact for students at Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk, Russia.  The ARISS-Russia team said it went very well.

 

• Oct 8:  The Bampton School in Bampton, UK, will have hosted an ARISS contact for students with Drew Morgan. A report will be sent, including publicity garnered from the live-streaming.
  

 ARISS Social Media    
ARISS Facebook

                                                               ARISS Twitter
 
ARISS Twitter followers at the end of September 2019 totaled 11,398, a gain of 1.1% over August.
 
 
         Upcoming Events     

• Oct 9-10: The Russian ISS on-board experiment, MAI-75, will downlink Slow Scan TV images allowing ham operators and other radio enthusiasts on Earth to receive them. Those receiving the images can post them at the ARISS SSTV Gallery at: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/.

 

• Oct 12-13: A UK ARISS team member will give a presentation at the annual AMSAT-UK Colloquium in Milton Keynes, UK.

 

• Oct 18-20: ARISS-US team members will give a presentation at the annual AMSAT-NA Symposium in Arlington, VA.

• Sept. 23:  To the delight of all the children under their care, The Children’s Inn at NIH (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, MD hosted an ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague. Forty people attended the event where Hague answered 11 of the children’s questions. All the kids got to interact with him including a child too sick to come to the event room; this youth got the question answered by videotape. The event, carried over Facebook Live, had 2,000 viewers logged in.  Frank Bauer brought ARISS radio station hardware for the youth to handle and operate.  Students also learned facts about the NIH Tissue Chip experiments on the ISS.
  

• Sep 24:  The University of Colorado (UC) Amateur Radio Club undergrads in Boulder, CO, with the help of hams in the Boulder Amateur Radio Club in Boulder, sponsored an ARISS contact for students at Northridge Elementary and Nick Hague. All 16 fourth graders had their questions answered along with questions from 4 teachers, while an audience of 100 watched.  Kristen Brohm, program manager at St. Vrain Valley Innovaction Center was pleased with STEM lessons the students took part in; UC students had led youngsters in STEM activities for four weeks. The day’s events were streamed to the entire school district, which has 67,591 students.  The school posted an article at:  https://www.svvsd.org/updates/cu-boulder-connects-longmont-northridge-elementary-fourth-graders-iss-astronaut  The story was picked up by the Boulder Daily Camera, Longmont’s Times Call, and Lyons’s Lyons Today; other reporters attending were from Denver’s TV-7 and KOA News Radio. A live-stream from the ARISS radio telebridge station in Italy reported 110 viewers. 
  

• Sep 24:  An ARISS contact was supported by the ARISS-Russia team at a school in Plovdiv, Bulgaria—details will be forthcoming.
  

 

• Sep 27-28: ARISS-Russia team set up ARISS contacts for two United Arab Emirates (UAE) schools with the Space Flight Participant.  Next week’s report should contain the details.
  

 

• Sep 21: ARISS volunteer Dave Jordan helped teach an intensive weekend ham radio Technician Class License course.  Over half of the class, which was held at the Winter Springs, FL Police Department, were students, including one who took part last February in an ARISS school contact.

 

• Sep 20:  ARISS-Italia volunteer Micol Ivanci gave a talk about ARISS to an amateur radio club in Treviglio, Italy. She plans the day and time of her talks so the audience can watch live-streamed ARISS school contacts.  This audience began watching a live-stream of the Australian ARISS ground station just before watching the school contact, and the Aussies waved and said hello to the Italians.  Micol said, “I was happy like a child!”  She will give a talk near Venezia in October.  
  

• Sep 28: Rosalie White gave a talk about ARISS to the Monroe County Hamfest near Bloomington, IN.  Ten people including two students who assisted Rosalie with handouts, enthusiastically listened to details about ARISS and a status of the ham radio station to be launched to the ISS.
  

 

• Sep 20:  The October issue of the monthly journal, QST, mailed to 160,000 ARRL members (American Radio Relay League) carried a half-page photo story on ARISS.  The article covered the ARISS volunteers working with AMSAT on efforts to design an amateur radio station for Lunar Gateway. 
  

 
          Upcoming Events   

• Oct 1:  Sonoma County Library in Santa Rosa, CA will host an ARISS contact with area youth and the community and Nick Hague is the supporting astronaut.
  

 

• Oct 2:  UAE school #3 has its ARISS contact scheduled with the Space Flight Participant.

 

• Oct 8:  College Robert Doisneau students in Sarralbe, France will have an ARISS contact with Luca Parmitano.

 

• Oct 8:  The Bampton School in Bampton, UK, will host an ARISS contact for students with Drew Morgan.

• Sep 18:  Students at Templestowe College in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia held their ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague who answered 9 student questions. The auditorium was full. Over 315 students, family, and community members watched the evening begin with a talk by the mayor, then an ABC radio interview, and a discussion on astronaut selection tests.  The events were live-streamed from the school and garnered 690 real-time viewers. Activity at the ARISS Australian ground station was also live-streamed for other viewers. A teacher wrote: “A number of students had nervous dispositions, so seeing them rise to the occasion and prove to themselves what they were capable of was wonderful to see. Their newfound confidence could be life changing, and that comes from the passion you [the ARISS team] showed and what you did for us.  This was worth every hour and minute students spent preparing.”   All 1,100 students had taken part in build-up activities over the school term.
  

• Sep 20: The Fort Meade Middle School Teen Center hosted Boys and Girls Club youth at Fort Meade, MD. They enjoyed speaking with Nick Hague, and he answered 16 of their questions while nearly 70 attendees listened.  They participated in several ARISS activities and ham radio demonstrations, including a Slow Scan TV demonstration, and watched a fast-moving ARISS video explaining how the ham radio connection happens. Personnel from Fort Meade and Raytheon were present, and one of the latter spoke on aerospace careers. Several news reporters were on hand including the Baltimore Sun Sound-off and WNAV. Fort Meade Facebook’s pre-contact YouTube publicity got 698 views. Fox News (Good Morning DC) and Meade TV planned to interview youth on September 25. Youth are from Meade Middle School, Meade High School, and MacArthur Middle School.  In July and August, teens had participated in STEM hands-on activities during an Apollo 50 “Moon Shot Celebration,” put together and soldered electronic kits, and did the Tomatosphere experiment.  
  

• Sep 23:  Youth at the Children’s Inn at NIH in Bethesda, MD, spoke with Nick Hague during their re-scheduled ARISS contact.  Next week’s report will contain the details.

 
         Upcoming Events   

• Sep 24:  Members of the University of Colorado Amateur Radio Club with the help of hams in the Boulder Amateur Radio Club in Boulder, CO will sponsor an ARISS contact with Nick Hague for youth at Northridge Elementary School.
  

 

• Sep 24: For an ARISS contact at a school in Plovdiv, Bulgaria--the cosmonaut will be scheduled soon.

 

• Sep 27: ARISS-Russia team has set up an ARISS contact for United Arab Emirates (UAE) school #1 with the Space Flight Participant.

 

• Sep 28: The UAE school #2 will have its ARISS contact sponsored by ARISS-Russia with the Space Flight Participant.
  

• Oct 1:  Sonoma County Library in Rohnert Park, CA will host an ARISS contact with area youth and the community and Nick Hague is the supporting astronaut.
  

 

• Oct 2:  UAE school #3 has its ARISS contact scheduled with the Space Flight Participant.
  

• Aug - Sep:  ARISS volunteer Stefan Dombrowski taught “Satellite Camp” for a number of weeks in Redu, Belgium.  Each camp is one-week long for 13-year-olds, and 25% of the youth are female. The leaders are trying various marketing techniques to increase that percentage. The camp offers three levels that students can progress through. Curriculum is based on building a satellite and each kid goes home with one -- called MySat!  Kids figure out what a satellite is, what it can do, why it doesn’t fall down, a lot of theory, before they discover electronics: resistors, volts, etc. They work on breadboards and then learn to solder PC boards.  They discuss radio communications, ham radio, and ARISS, and listen to passing satellites including ARISS contacts. Stefan wrote, “Just listening only to the downlink causes students to become curious.” Next is programming and discovering the computer, Arduino.  They add a 2.4 GHz transmitter, put everything in a 3D-printed box and the result is a CubeSat-like device. A drone lifts (“launches”) the satellites up ~300 feet and a ground station captures the flight data: temperature, air pressure, humidity that will be analyzed.  Students enjoy a field trip to the ESA ground station in Redu. They get outside for a ham radio transmitter hunt and similar hands-on ham activities.  At other sponsored camps (rocket, robot, astronaut camps), Stefan is asked to demonstrate ham radio contacts and satellite reception (NOAA, FunCube, ISS). 
  

  

• Sep 11: The Coastal Leader, a newspaper in Kingston, S. Australia, ran a post-event story related to the ARISS radio contact a few days earlier at the Kingston Community School. The article covered the radio contact and the school’s science week, with the theme Destination Moon, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing.  Students studied why the anniversary was so widely celebrated and they researched living in space and current and future space programs.  After the ARISS contact, students listened to the recording of it and evaluated things about the event.
  

• Sep 10:  ARISS volunteer Darrell Warren led a professional development event for 18 educators who are part of the Young Scientists Program (YSP) at University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, CA.  YSP is run by USC’s Dornsife College Joint Education Project with a program director and undergrad STEM teaching assistants who have a passion for education, community service and science.

 
 
         Upcoming Events   

• Sep 18: Templestowe College in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia will host an ARISS contact for students with Nick Hague.
  
• Sep 20: Excitement is building at the Boys and Girls Club in Ft. Meade, MD as kids there prepare for their ARISS chat with Nick Hague.
  
• Sep 23: Youth at the Children’s Inn at NIH in Bethesda, MD, will speak with Nick Hague during their re-scheduled ARISS contact.
  
• Sep 24:  Members of the University of Colorado Amateur Radio Club with the help of hams in the Boulder Amateur Radio Club in Boulder, CO will sponsor an ARISS contact with Nick Hague for youth at Northridge Elementary School.
  
• Sep 24: For an ARISS contact at a school in Plovdiv, Bulgaria--the cosmonaut will be scheduled soon.
  
• Sep 27: ARISS-Russia team has set up an ARISS contact for United Arab Emirates (UAE) school #1 with the Space Flight Participant.
  
• Sep 28: The UAE school #2 will have its ARISS contact sponsored by ARISS-Russia with the Space Flight Participant.
  
• Oct 2:  UAE school #3 has its ARISS contact scheduled with the Space Flight Participant.

• Sep 3: Galileo STEM Academy in Eagle, ID reported on their successful ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague who answered 20 student questions while a crowd of 850 watched the action.  VIPs present for the contact included the mayor of Eagle, the West Ada School District supervisor, and staff from the Eagle Office of Emergency Management. This public school enrolls K through 8th graders and was the first school in the state to become STEM certified in 2018 through AdvancEd.  The academy promotes student critical thinking and problem-solving skills by providing hands-on project-based learning utilizing the engineering design process. Teachers put into practice a number of NASA lessons and ARRL lessons before and after attending ARRL Teachers Institute, a week-long educator professional development technical workshop. The school sponsors a ham radio club and a rocket club, and two teachers studied and got their ham radio license.  Students can participate in First Lego League Robotics, maker space, Botball and Jr. Botball Robotics using C++ coding, FabSLAM 3-D Printing Team, Raspberry Pi Operating Systems group, Math Counts Team, and the Idaho Tech Challenge.
  

• Sep 3: After much hard work and preparation, Kingston Community School in Kingston SE, South Australia, Australia held their ARISS contact with Drew Morgan. The events took place before an audience of 140 as Morgan answered 13 students’ questions. One TV station and two newspaper reporters were on hand to cover activity. Audio of the contact was carried over a live simulcast at the internet links, Echolink, IRLP 9556, and AllStar 48820. Kingston Community School’s mission is “to foster a STEM approach, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and curiosity, communication, teamwork, innovation, entrepreneurship and adaptability.”

 
 
           Upcoming Events   

• Sep 18: Students at the Templestowe College in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia will take part in an ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague.
  
• Sep 20: The Boys & Girls Club in Ft. Meade, MD will host an ARISS contact with Nick Hague.
  
• Sep 23-26:  A date will be chosen from this range of days to re-schedule an ARISS contact at The Children’s Inn at NIH (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, MD.   Last-minute crew sleep-shift schedule change resulted in a switch in plans for the contact that had been scheduled originally for August 22.
• Sep 24: ARISS-Russia will support an ARISS contact for a school in Bulgaria.

• Aug. 22: A last-minute crew sleep-shift schedule change resulted in a switch in plans for an ARISS radio contact at The Children’s Inn at NIH (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, MD.  Instead of the radio contact, Astronaut Clay Anderson was invited to visit the children via Skype Video to answer their prepared questions, and he uplifted them.  The NIH team along with Frank Bauer, and Melissa Pore (from the ARISS-US Education Committee) led hands-on STEM activities related to ham radio and NIH work, set up tables that allowed kids to handle and hear about ham radio hardware, and gave presentations on ham radio, ARISS, and NIH Tissue Chip studies. The youth received NASA activity booklets and backpacks. The NIH ARISS radio contact will be re-scheduled.  
  

• Aug. 19: The September/October issue of Arlington Magazine featured an article on Melissa Pore, an avid ARISS volunteer and an engineering, cybersecurity and technology teacher at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, VA.  The story told of her love for teaching and the hands-on real-world philosophy she uses to successfully engage students.  She had managed her high school’s 2018 ARISS contact and students now enjoy ham radio demos and numerous STEM and ham-related activities involving among other things, soldering and integrated circuit boards.  She stated, “They leave my class with an engineering design project they are proud of.”  Some of her main projects are student-designed and assembled satellites. Melissa serves on the ARISS-US Education Committee and has represented ARISS at many STEM-related conferences, staffing the ARISS booth and giving presentations to educators about ARISS.
  

• Jul 23: The ARISS-Russia team reported that a successful ARISS radio contact took place for 50 high school students through the Gagarin from Space program at the Ufa Air & Space Summer Camp in Bashkortostan, Russia.  Two consecutive orbits were allotted, one not long before midnight and then during the following orbit.  They watched the ISS travel overhead and spoke with cosmonauts during the first orbit, and continued the radio conversation during the next orbit. 
  

• Aug 20: The September issue of the monthly journal, QST, mailed to 160,000 ARRL members (American Radio Relay League) carried a 2/3-page photo story on the ARISS-International meeting in Montreal in June.  The article covered meeting topics and highlighted the transfer of the ARISS JVC Kenwood D710GA from ARISS-Japan to ARISS-Russia.
  

• Aug 13 & 24: The ARISS Operations Team ran two successful tests, preparing for the upcoming three ARISS contacts to be handled by ARISS-Russia and initiated by the Russian Space Flight Participant from the United Arab Emirates.

                                                      Social Media
 
                                                     ARISS Facebook:

                                                       
                                                           ARSS Twitter:   

• ARISS Twitter followers at the end of August 2019 totaled 11,278, a gain of 220 or 2.0% over the end of July 2019.
  

 
         Upcoming Events   

• Sep 3: An ARISS contact hosted by Kingston Community School in Kingston SE, South Australia, AU will be supported by Drew Morgan.
  

• Jul 4-6:  Woodridge Middle School in High Ridge, MO, will host an ARISS contact in December 2019.  Their ARISS Education Proposal promised outreach they would do to bring attention to the value of STEM and ARISS, and to solicit support for more STEM initiatives they want to incorporate into the curriculum.  So 11 teachers and parents set up four large tables and various roll-ups under a big tent at Fair St. Louis.  They, along with 3 students, engaged 4,000 adult and youth visitors!  Youth made model rockets that were released with compressed air, built basic radio kits, talked on the air during ham radio demos, and saw exhibits on astronomy and projects, such as Tomatosphere, the school adopted once the staff won the ARISS contact. Adults also viewed displays on how ARISS helped the school so far.  The school principal said, “This is exactly what students need to see—how science is relevant in their lives.”  
  

• Aug 15: Loreto College, a girls’ school in Adelaide, S. Australia, Australia hosted an ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague. An audience of 250 listened as he gave comprehensive answers to 12 student-prepared questions. In the hours prior to the contact, the audience listened to a girl speak about her research done through the SETI program, watched a video of some of the girls during their time at US Space Camp, and looked at numerous student science projects displayed by the girls including a spacesuit one girl had made. Guests at the ARISS contact were representatives from the defense industry, the Adelaide University Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program, and the Premier’s office--premiers head the Australian states’ executive governments. Video was live-streamed of the hams operating the Italian telebridge radio station to facilitate the ARISS contact. Live audio was transmitted to hams around the world over the Echolink and Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) systems. The school Facebook page carried stories.
  

• Aug 17: A short ARISS radio contact supported by Luca Parmitano was a highlight of the 90th anniversary event and hamfest in Zug, Switzerland, sponsored by the Union of Swiss Shortwave Amateurs, the Swiss national association for ham radio operators.  During the contact, Parmitano gave greetings that were received by 200 adults and youth.  The audience included a representative from the Swiss Parliament and the government of the state of Zug, and the mayor of Zug. The event was covered by TV System Tele 1, radio SRF Regional, and a newspaper. Ham radio groups relayed the audio around the country.
  

          Upcoming Events    

• Aug 22: Youth at The Children’s Inn at NIH (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, MD are looking forward to their ARISS contact with Drew Morgan. 

• Aug. 8:  Students at Kyoto Tachibana Junior & Senior High School in Kyoto, Japan had a successful ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague. An audience of 100 took in the action, as 19 students asked their questions. A newspaper covered the event.  
  

• Aug 2-3: Three ARISS team members set up and staffed an exhibit at the 2019 Satellite Educators Conference at Cal State University in Los Angeles, CA.  The sponsor, Satellite Educators Association is a non-profit, professional organization of educators and those wanting to enhance the educational environment to excite students about STEM through satellites and satellite data. The team set up a large table displaying photos about ARISS, amateur radio, and the International Space Station. The exhibit featured two satellite antennas, rolling video clips, and a satellite-tracking program for the ISS in real time. Teachers and teacher candidates coming from as far away as New Jersey stopped by, exclaiming amazement when hearing about ARISS.   A team member offered visits to give demos about ARISS and ham radio to their schools and several have emailed him to set these up.  Exhibitors including AIAA, NOAA, NASA, and JPL worked as a team to spark conference goers’ interest.  
  

 

• Aug:  The ARISS team has been working on plans for the 2nd annual ARISS Education Summit to be held October 20-21 at College Park, MD. 

 

• Aug 8:  ARISS learned that due to its outreach activities in recent years, eight interns at Goddard Space Flight Center have earned their ham radio licenses. As they engage in their STEM outreach, having a ham radio license will equip them to more easily share details about ARISS and ham radio STEM hands-on activities.

 

• Aug 9: Last week’s online Amateur Radio Newsline Report featured a segment on the recent Slow Scan TV event that commemorated astronaut Owen Garriott for his outstanding achievements.  The 12 images of Garriott were enthusiastically received and downlinked by radio enthusiasts and the general public around the world.

 

 
         Upcoming Events    

• Aug 15:  Students at Loreto College, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia will have an ARISS radio contact with Nick Hague. The school plans to live stream the contact.

 

• Aug 22: The Children’s Inn at NIH in Bethesda, MD will host an ARISS contact with youth. Drew Morgan will support the activity.

 

• Jul 29 - Aug 1:  ARISS team members staffed an exhibit at the ISS Research & Development Conference in Atlanta, GA, and in particular, engaged with students and educators on STEM Day.  The exhibit was set up in conjunction with, and funded in part by, the ISS National Lab and Space Station Explorers (SSE).  The conference enabled ARISS to coordinate more closely with SSE partners including ISS Above and Magnitude.IO.  Team members got to chat with Serena Aunon-Chancellor to thank her for the ARISS radio contacts she supported, inspiring tens of thousands of youth and educators.  She was told how hams loved her recorded greetings that the ARISS team featured in presentations at many conventions and conferences. She learned also that hams greatly enjoyed the general radio contacts she had initiated.  She replied that she would love to do it all over again if she gets another chance to fly.  

• Aug 3:  Frank Bauer attended the ISS National Lab Space Station Explorers education summit. He gave a presentation on ARISS’s status and this generated a lot of discussion and ideas on how the SSE partners can work together on future opportunities.  

 

• Aug. 2: Dhruv Rebba, age 15 of Normal, IL won the 2019 Bill Pasternak WA6ITF Memorial Young Ham of the Year national award.  His dad inspired him to earn a ham radio Technician Class License at age 9 followed by upgrading to General Class at 10.  Dhruv began taking part in many volunteer activities at his local ham club, including on-the-air events and ARISS. He met with his Chiddix Junior High School teachers and convinced them to submit an ARISS proposal, and even suggested things they might write. The proposal was chosen for a 2017 ARISS contact with Joe Acaba.  Dhruv is now an avid promoter of radio and ARISS at many US conventions.  He helped plan the 2019 World Scout Jamboree ARISS contact. He joined ARISS’s Lunar Gateway team, is an ARISS Mentor trainee, and is interested in a career in aerospace.

 

• Aug. 1 - 4:  ARISS team members from around the globe worked together to support another ARISS Slow Scan TV (SSTV) event with downlinked images from the ISS.  This session featured 12 images transmitted to Earth that commemorate the accomplishments of astronaut Owen Garriott.  ARISS SSTV events are very popular among worldwide ham operators, shortwave listeners, and the general public. This session was no exception with today’s count being a whopping 10,036 images that people captured and uploaded to the ARISS SSTV Gallery at: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/.  As always, people posting their images can qualify for an ARISS commemorative award certificate.

 

• July 29 - 30: ARISS-Russia launched an SSTV event using the Moscow Aviation Institute MAI-75 experiment onboard the ISS.  Ham operators and other radio enthusiasts primarily in Russia, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia were able to downlink 961 images. Many of these can be viewed at the ARISS gallery website at: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/ .
  

•  July 20:  ARISS volunteer Darrell Wilson gave a ham radio and ARISS presentation titled “Making Friends Around the World,” at the Mountain Friends Camp, a Quaker peace camp near Mora, NM for youth.  He stressed ARISS international teamwork and the diversity of the ISS crews and their collaboration. He explained that hams regularly make lifelong friends from other countries while talking often over the air to them.  After the campers got on the air using his ham radio, he displayed a letter written in Japanese characters that he received from a Japanese ham after having talked to him often over the air for years.  The Japanese friend wrote, “I hope the children at your meeting may someday get a ham license and be able to share their peace and friendship with other people in the world with different cultures and languages.” The youth wrote thank you cards to the US hams and the Japanese ham.

 
         Upcoming Events  

• Aug 8: Students at Kyoto Tachibana Junior & Senior High School in Kyoto, Japan will hold their ARISS contact with Nick Hague.

 

• Aug 15: Luca Parmitano will support an ARISS contact for Loreto College students in Adelaide, Australia. 

                                        ARISS Social Media for July 2019

ARISS Twitter followers at the end of July 2019 totaled 11,058, a gain of 142 over the end of June.