February 23:  Students sporting ARISS t-shirts at Sussex County Charter School for Technology in Sparta, NJ were anxious hearing a countdown to calling Mark Vande Hei on the radio. Hearing his voice, they cheered loudly and during the ARISS contact he answered 14 questions.  765 people watched at the school or via the live stream, and 24 hours later, the recording got 1,190 views. VIPs attending were Acting New Jersey Department of Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan, State Legislature Chief of Staff Brett Conrads, Sussex County Education Superintendent Gayle Carrick, and ARRL Directors Fred Kemmerer and Ria Jairam (assisting with the radios).  Ham operators in the ISS footprint listened on their radios at home. A New Jersey Education Association crew taped the action and interviewed staff and students for a future feature, “Making the Grade.” Faculty had led students in hands-on physics activities on space weather, communications, solar cycles, ionospheric phenomena and effects on communication. Partnering on lessons were New Jersey Institute of Technology, Sussex County Technical School, and Sussex County Amateur Radio Club. Last June the school sponsored the first Radio STEM Camp and formed the Sussex County Charter School for Technology Amateur Radio Club (12 members) that works with the Society of Women Engineers. On Friday, ARISS posted a YouTube about Sussex’s ARISS STEM activities at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHlexJ-VZeU.
 
February 22: German students from Erasmus Gymnasium in Denzlingen and from Goethe Gymnasium in Freiburg held a successful ARISS contact with Matthias Maurer who answered 19 questions. The live stream garnered 230 views, and three days later 2,683 viewers had tuned in. The contact was streamed also over the QO-100 geostationary ham radio satellite. The schools hosted a multi-faceted several-hour event that showcased student STEAM activities, Maurer’s background, the schools’ and regions’ histories, area ham clubs’ support, and greetings from officials. A video presented Erasmus Gymnasium’s student studies on applied science and technology and Goethe Gymnasium’s physics courses covering electromagnetic waves, tech applications, math tools and other STEM activities. Media coverage included radio stations Radio Regenbogen, Baden.FM, Hitradio Ohr, Schwarzwaldradio and newspapers Badische Zeitung and Von Haus zu Haus.
 
February 10-12: ARISS-US Education Committee member Martha Muir, with several North Fulton Amateur Radio League members and an informal educator (who had led STEM lessons at an ARISS school) teamed up for an ARISS presence at the 2022 Georgia Science Teachers Association Conference. Educators came to Peachtree City from all over the state. The team staffed a table in the exhibit hall and set up a ham satellite station in the parking lot. In three days, they interacted with 300 teachers. Those stopping at the table were nudged to head outside to watch and take part in making satellite radio contacts. An educator who brought two elementary-age daughters saw her girls’ fascination with the moving ISS on the Geochron atlas and being thrilled when they made a satellite radio contact. Martha had been chosen to give a Thursday talk and Q&A; she described ARISS to a roomful of 27 teachers. Rachel was chosen for a Friday session; she spoke to 25 teachers on launching and garnering data from ham radio payloads on high-altitude balloons, lessons she had taught at an ARISS school. Martha also visited booths set up by teacher education colleges and science museums, generating interest in the upcoming ARISS proposal window opening.
 
February 17:  The lead ARISS teacher at St Stephen’s Episcopal School in Houston, TX has a mast and an azimuth/elevation antenna rotator set up in the school’s lab for students to work with. The school will host an ARISS contact later in 2022. The teacher wrote: “The kids are really excited when they watch the antenna rotating. This week they used it to light up an LED with a Romex dipole antenna. They're into it!”  
 
February 17: ARISS Education Director Kathy Lamont wrote a blurb for NASA EXPRESS to announce a window opening by ARISS for educators to write and submit an ARISS-US Education and Contact Proposal. NASA EXPRESS went to 56,496 subscribers and was shared through the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s social media tools to approximately 937,950 followers (NASA STEM Engagement Facebook, @NASASTEM Twitter, 429,847 NASA STEM Pinterest). 
The ISS National Lab distributed a message on February 21 about the ARISS window opening to 1,500 people in the Space Station Explorers Ambassador program.
 
ARISS Upcoming Events 
 
February 28 Carter Woodson Middle School, Hopewell VA  ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

February 14: FH Aachen, University of Applied Sciences in Aachen (FHAUAS) Germany hosted an ARISS contact with Matthias Maurer (who earned his doctorate there); he answered 19 questions. The livestream of the contact garnered 512 views and the recording saw 2,008 views four days later. Many European hams listened to the contact using their own hand-held radios. Engineering students organized the ARISS project with help from these FHAUAS partners: Yuri´s Night Deutschland e.V., Deutscher Amateur Radio Club e.V., and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR). Undergrads had set up a competition for the region’s young students to submit questions; the youth whose questions were selected felt quite honored to speak to Maurer.  FHAUAS offers a bachelor’s and master’s education in computer engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, bioengineering, power engineering. The school’s permanent Space Operations Facility helps students learn fundamentals of satellite communications by operating an amateur radio station including a radio ground station and mission control center—mostly built and programmed by students. They capture and decode data from weather satellites and ham satellites such as CubeSats.
 
February 10: Students at Gewerbliche Schulen Donaueschingen in Donaueschingen, Germany had an ARISS contact with Matthias Maurer who answered 18 questions. Following Covid protocols, 18 students and 8 staff and radio volunteers were on site. Other students watched the livestream, and over 440 listened to the audio at several area schools. Media coverage was by Südkurier, SWR Radio, SWR Aktuell TV, Radio 7 and KMZ-Stream. The school provides its 1,200 students a two-year STEM vocational training program, including in technology, the natural sciences, and an introduction to mechanical and electrical engineering. The senior class took on the ARISS contact as their final graduating project with support from the staff and the area amateur radio club that many students belong to and are licensed hams. Preparation for the ARISS contact included communications studies on radio wave properties and electrical engineering, such as radio components for filtering, and antenna construction projects. 
 
February 11-13: ARISS supported a full set of activities in Florida at one of the largest annual US ham radio conventions, Orlando HamCation, with an estimated 25,000 attendees. ARISS set up an exhibit in two booths that showcased three new education programs; ARISS volunteers talked with approximately 400 radio enthusiasts, educators, and students. Frank Bauer took part in an interview video initiated by ARISS-sponsor ARRL; he spoke about new ARISS educational programs; viewer count a week later totaled 4,630.  Four ARISS team members presented a forum featuring a panel discussion on the new ARISS education programs and new equipment initiatives; panel members answered questions from an audience of 35. Another ARISS team member presented a forum on ham radio satellites and ARISS activities.
 
February 7-8: Cosmonauts on the ISS supported another popular Moscow Aviation Institute SSTV session. This event attracted 545 unique participants who downloaded and posted 1,560 images to the ARISS SSTV Gallery at: https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php.
 
January: ARISS educator Gina Kwid, a K-5 engineering teacher at Galileo STEM Academy in Eagle, ID, led several hands-on STEM activities recently that students particularly enjoyed. They learned about flying a drone and its use of radio communication, added a motor to Legos projects, and created cardboard models of Mars landers.
 
January 10-14: ARISS educator Melissa Pore attended the week-long Vatican Observatory‘s science workshop, “Astronomy for Catholic Ministry & Education” in Tucson, AZ. She had the opportunity to hold discussions about ARISS and how she uses amateur radio and ARISS in her high school classes to teach radio waves, frequency, and various aspects of wireless communications.
 
February 20: ARISS is performing the first of its series of official experiments from the Columbus Module with the hope of expanding its ARISS SSTV (picture downlink) capabilities. The ARISS-Europe and ARISS-US teams are running the special SSTV experiments using a new digital coding scheme. The first experiment will utilize ARISS-Europe approved ground stations to transmit digital SSTV signals. Members of the ham radio community, young and old, students and the public who are in the ISS footprint are invited to receive and decode these special signals, and email reports to ARISS.
 
February 17:  A Russian Progress re-supply ship delivered an additional Kenwood D710GA ARISS radio to the ISS, this one for the Service Module. The radio will allow ARISS to broaden its activities and will aid ARISS by having identical radios in both the Service Module and Columbus Module.
 
ARISS Upcoming Events 
 
February 22 Erasmus Gymnasium, Denzligen, Germany ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
February 23 Sussex County Charter School for Technology, Sparta NJ ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
February 28 Carter Woodson Middle School, Hopewell VA  ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team

February 4: Johannes Kepler Gymnasium (JKG) in Lebach, Germany hosted an ARISS radio contact with Matthias Maurer who answered 16 student questions. This K-12 school is one of only three in the Lebach area with a STEM department and partners with the global Bosch Homburg, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, and Krämer-IT. JKG’s amateur radio station offers the students enjoyable learning activities on radio communications; teachers lead projects such as launching model rockets and high-altitude balloons with radio payloads that allow tracking and analyzing of the data.  The livestream of the ARISS contact events garnered 2,994 views, and 6 days later, 4,646 views; the URL is https://youtu.be/S15MUGSvlQI (begin at 41 minutes).
 
February 2: Last week’s report listed a successful ARISS contact at the Amur Flight Control Center of Amur State University (AmSU) in Blagoveshchensk, Russia. ARISS has now received photos and details, including that 12 students came from several area schools to ask their questions during the radio contact. Supporting the contact were two cosmonauts, Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov; they answered 14 questions. Chief Specialist of RSC Energia, Sergey Samburov spoke to the students as did the senior lecturer of the AmSU Department of Physics. Also invited was the AmSU Deputy Dean for Career Guidance; she described STEM careers, encouraging students to consider these.
 
February 2: Last week’s report covered ARISS leaders attending the ISS National Lab Space Station Explorers’ (SSE) annual partner meeting at Space Center Houston (TX). ARISS now has details on the activity of ARISS educators Melissa Pore and Gina Kwid at the meeting. Melissa spoke during the ISS National Lab User Advisory Group’s presentation, showing a video and describing ARISS, including how ARISS and SSE lessons are an integral part of the resources for her high school’s STEM classes. Gina gave her perspective on her students’ STEAM experiences from the months of ARISS-related studies prior to her school hosting an ARISS contact.
 
February 4: Frank Bauer and Rosalie White tag-teamed for a multi-media presentation to members of the Dayton (OH) Amateur Radio Association. Attendees totaled 78 from Ohio; 3 were in other states. The hour-long talk covered all aspects of ARISS, including new education initiatives. Questions at the end showed the audience’s interest in helping youth take part in upcoming education programs. The club posted a recording of the talk on their web site for members who couldn’t watch due to shoveling snow.
 
 
ARISS Upcoming Events 
 
February 11-13 ARRL National Convention, Orlando FL, ARISS booth & forum, ARISS-US Team
February 14 University of Applied Sciences, Aachen, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team

January 31:  The Lewis Center for Educational Research in Apple Valley, CA hosted an ARISS contact supported by Tom Marshburn for their students in 116 classes at the Academy of Academic Excellence and the Norton Science and Language Academy. They asked him 13 questions, some in English and some in Spanish. They followed Covid guidelines and the audience mix was: 176 educators and staff, 2,652 students, and 3,321 parents, community members and other space enthusiasts. The Center showed a video of students’ STEAM learning activities; after the ARISS contact a student question session was supported by astronaut Dan Tani.  Lewis offered a Facebook livestream of events at https://youtu.be/zvkNhysV-YI and ARISS simulcasted it on the ARISS YouTube Channel. In addition to Social Media postings done by Lewis and picked up by other venues, the High Desert Daily News prepared and ran a story:  https://www.hddailynews.com/news/local/aae-makes-long-distance-phone-call-to-international-space-station/article_86dd10ee-82ea-11ec-972c-23cfe9868feb.html.  Lewis staff began leading student STEAM activities in the 2021 Fall semester. Throughout January they taught some of the Christa McAuliffe Lost Lessons completed by Ricky Arnold and “What is a Satellite”--natural and human-made, i.e. ISS, and what each satellite is. Other lessons were “What is NASA SCaN,” how they communicate, the electromagnetic spectrum and its parts used to communicate. ARISS team members Christy and Bruce Hunter led some communications demos and activities with students. Lewis operates the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope astronomy program through a 25-year partnership with NASA/JPL.
 
February 2: ARISS was represented at the Space Exploration Educators Conference in Houston, TX. As part of the first day of the conference, the ISS National Lab held its hybrid-style annual Space Station Explorers’ Partners Meeting. ARISS team members Frank Bauer, Melissa Pore, Gina Kwid, and Rosalie White participated. At this meeting, NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s Mike Kincaid gave a lengthy talk. At the SEEC event, ARISS educators Melissa Pore gave a presentation related to ARISS and more details will be in next week’s report.
 
January 25 & February 2: In late January the Quantorium Children's Technopark in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia, hosted a successful ARISS radio contact supported by Anton Shkaplerov. Then on February 2, Amur State University students took part in an ARISS radio contact with Pyotr Dubrov. Both groups of students are in the Gagarin from Space program.    
 
January 28: ARISS thanks SCaN for creating Twitter and Facebook posts about the ARISS contact at Lewis Center for Educational Research in California.
 
January 15: ARISS team member Randy Berger presented two ARISS forums at the Cowtown Hamfest in Forest Hill, TX. Between the two forums, attendees totaled 30. Randy had set up an ARISS exhibit area at a table and an estimated 80 people stopped by and asked questions about ARISS.

 
ARISS Social Media for January
 
ARISS Facebook

January ARISS Facebook followers totaled 7,249.     
January ARISS Twitter followers were 15,866, a 1% gain over December. 
January Instagram followers grew to 393.
January YouTube subscribers totaled 1,661, a 1% gain over December.
 
Top Tweet in January – 4,162 Impressions

ARISS Upcoming Events 
 
February 4 Johannes-Kepler Gymnasium, Lebach, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team
February 10 Gewerbliche Schulen, Donaueschingen, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS Europe Team
February 11-13 ARRL National Convention, Orlando FL, exhibit & forum, ARISS-US Team
February 14 University of Applied Sciences, Aachen, Germany, ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe Team