- May 9: ARISS-International PR Chair Dave Jordan posted a video on ARISS Facebook that features the first Multipoint Telebridge via Amateur Radio school contact. In a little over a week after Dave posted the almost 8-minute video, it had reached 2,552 people, collected 34 Likes, and got 13 Shares. Chris Cassidy supported this contact for the Northern Virginia Students Group in Woodbridge, VA.
- May 6: ARISS educator Melissa Pore invited Alan Johnston, AMSAT Educational Relations Vice President and Villanova University professor, to lead her Engineering Club students in an online demo and workshop about satellites and software defined radio. Melissa teaches at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, VA. All of her classroom students get weekly updates on ISS experiments and satellites they built. One ISS experiment was postponed to the NG-15 Cygnus mission and another experiment had come down on a SpaceX mission.
- May 20: Rosalie White presented a Zoom program about ARISS to members of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 1314 in Keene, NH. She shared a little ARISS history, discussed crossovers between aviation and ARISS and ham radio, described a past ARISS contact she assisted with at the big EAA Oshkosh airshow, and covered current ARISS activities. At the end, several of the 10 enthusiastic chapter members said: “What an awesome program.” And, “How do I learn more about ARISS school contacts?”
- May 22: The ISS Fan Club hosted an online Google Meet presentation where club leaders shared a little of its history with viewers and discussed notable ARISS projects and activities from the past to the present. Ham operators started the ISS Fan Club a number of years ago to serve as an online source of some types of information about ISS and ARISS activities. The site is managed by ARISS-Europe volunteers. Following the 40-minute program the leaders took questions from viewers.
ARISS Upcoming Events
- June 1: A mid-altitude balloon launch will take place simultaneously from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Pasadena, CA at 15:00 UTC/11:00 EDT/10:00 CDT/9:00 MDT/8:00 PDT in a race to see what one gets to the Eastern Time Zone first. Students at home around the world will track the balloons through ARISS’s online lessons at: https://www.ariss.org/mid-altitude-balloon-race.html.