May 13: ARISS announced the nine educational institutions selected to host ARISS radio contacts between January and June 2023 for students and a crew member on the ISS.  The groups were chosen based on the high-quality ARISS education proposals they each submitted. The institutions will now move forward with ARISS mentors who will assist with an equipment plan, and teachers will determine when to initiate their education plan.
 
Table: schools selected for ARISS radio contacts in January through June 2023

May 17:  The Virginia state chapters of the Air and Space Forces Association recognized ARISS’s Melissa Pore as 2022 Virginia State Teacher of the Year.  The group cited her for “achievements in advancing and motivating students and young people toward STEM disciplines.” It association vetted her for encouraging students at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, VA to “explore new frontiers beyond classrooms, leading the Engineering Club, Amateur Radio Club, Aviation Club, SeaPerch Underwater Robotics Club, and Astrobotany Club.” Besides teaching high school engineering and technology classes, she is on the ARISS Ops Team that works out of Goddard Space Flight Center to support ARISS contacts and she’s an ARISS-US Education Committee member.
 
May 19-20:  ARISS volunteers from multiple states pulled together an outstanding presence for ARISS at Hamvention 2022, the largest amateur radio convention in the US, which is in Xenia, OH each year. The ARISS team staffed its constantly-busy exhibit area, presented an ARISS Forum to 150 listeners, had a portion of an education forum, did multiple interviews with podcasters, networked with many VIPs in the field, interacted with three of its sponsors and several of its larger donors, gave a remembrance at the AMSAT dinner of a special ARISS volunteer on his passing, and was honored at the Hamvention Annual Banquet where ARISS team member Kerry Banke was vetted for being chosen by Hamvention for the nationwide annual 2022 Special Achievement Award.  The booth took up two exhibit spaces in order to display to the crowds three of ARISS’ education programs including items from ARISS’ educational radio kits, a monitor with a video loop of photos from ARISS school contacts and STEM activities, and a model of the ARISS InterOperable Radio System on the ISS.  Convention attendance reached 30,000.
 
May 20: An ARISS radio contact was hosted by the Forum Accademico Italiano e.V. (FAI) in Köln, Germany for students in three German schools and one Italian school: Am Zugweg School and Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Cologne, Herkunft Sprache Unterricht in Bedburg/Elsdorf and Istituto San Giuseppe in Firenze. Samantha Cristoforetti supported the contact. Due to a sudden storm alert in the city, FAI sent students home but the ARISS team quickly pivoted and got the youth engaged in the ARISS contact via Zoom using the ARISS multipoint telebridge radio contact system. The live stream URL is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otZcANd1vXo. FAI aims to encourage interaction of Italian scientists in Germany with scientists in Italy to engage Italian youth attending German schools. For the ARISS contact, FAI involved students in human spaceflight-related STEM activities so that youth could see the role of space exploration and what it means to be an astronaut.  Staff at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne shared their expertise in human spaceflight with the youth.
 
May 21 & May 28: Students taking part in activities tied to the All-Russian Traveler Festival in Zadonsk, Lipetsk in Russia were part of two ARISS radio contacts.  For the first day’s radio contact, youth asked questions of Sergey Korsakov.  During the second radio contact, youth at the festival spoke to Oleg Artemyev.  The ARISS-Russia team set up the radio contacts.
 
May 14: Micol Ivancic, an educator on the ARISS team in Italy presented a talk to the Photo-Amateurs Club in Garlasco in Pavia, Italy.  50 people heard her presentation, which covered the ARISS program along with a discussion about the ISS and its systems.   
 
May 27: Youth in the city of Aznakayevo in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, who have been studying communications through the Gagarin from Space program, engaged in an ARISS contact.  Sergey Korsakov supported the activity and the ARISS-Russia team set up the radio station for it.
 
May: The following ARISS radio contacts took place recently, and more details about the events will be available for next week’s report.

• MINDSHUB APS & I.C. Avio in Ala, Trento, Italy
• Voskresensky Children’s Center in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
• Students and employees of SWGU in Kursk, Russia

 
 
ARISS Upcoming Events 
 
May 31 Amur State University, Blagoveshchensk, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia Team
May 31 Old St. Mary’s School, Chicago, Illinois  ARISS contact, ARISS-US Team
June 2 Moscow Autonomous Education Inst. Engineering Ctr., Kazan, Russia, ARISS-Russia team

May 11: The online publication, Interesting Engineering, ran a story about Dhruv Rebba, an ARISS volunteer who specializes in computer science as a senior at Normal Community High School in Bloomington, IL.  He’s been chosen for the national 2022 4-H Youth in Action Award for STEM. Here’s why. He’s the lead of the Illinois 4-H in Space Mission Command. The 4-H in Space program will potentially allow 10,000 Illinois youth over three years to collect data from satellites in space. He works with Illinois 4-H, the Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois, and the University of Illinois Department of Aerospace in developing a program to enable youth to build and program microsatellites that will launch in third quarter 2022. He’s CEO of Universal Health Foundation, an international non-profit dedicated to improving the quality of life for the underprivileged, providing such things as supplies to the needy--19 schools and 250 families during the pandemic.  In 2017 he wrote an ARISS Education Proposal with teachers, which won his school an ARISS contact. 
 
April 7: An ARISS educator at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Houston, TX engaged Kindergarten through 8th grade students in STEM by getting their hands-on help in assembling the pieces of a ham radio station at the school. The school will host an ARISS contact later in 2022. Earlier, students had assisted in installing the antenna and the antenna rotator on a mast. Recently, adults set up the antenna on the school roof. Students now proudly “have ownership” of the antenna. 
 
May 12: An ARISS contact was hosted by the Scuola Secondaria Leopardi in the Macherio, Monza and Brianza Provence of the Lombardia region of Italy.  150 students filled the big auditorium and 100 others in classrooms and outside of the school watched the livestream at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duoy5ArXFFw.  Macherio's mayor, the school principal and teachers, and news reporters also watched the action. After the contact, students showed off some of their educational achievements and talents to the audience.  By evening, 1,527 viewers had watched the recording of the contact. In previous months, 240 elementary and middle school students learned many aspects of space exploration and took part in events related to astrophysics, archaeology, electrical engineering, space medicine, environmental science, and amateur radio.
 
May 5: NASA’s web pages carried a feature titled, “The Scientific Journey of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Aboard the ISS.”  The story highlighted “scientific milestones” from the six-month mission, including that Raja Chari supported an ARISS radio contact with school students in Chile.  The story is at: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/scientific-journey-on-ISS-crew-3
 
May 11: The May/June 2022 issue of On the Air magazine contains an article penned by Rosalie White; it included a section on ARISS.  The magazine, published by the American Radio Relay League, goes to 45,000 of its members in print or digital format. Her item, titled “Don't Hesitate to Ask,” encourages readers not to worry that asking questions makes them sound “green.” She cited examples of not hesitating to ask how to make ARISS packet and cross band repeater contacts and to learn about ARISS SSTV (picture link) sessions.
 
ARISS Upcoming Events 

May 19-20 Hamvention, US-wide large amateur radio convention: booth, forum, ARISS-US team
May 20 Forum Accademico Italiano eV, Koln Germany  ARISS school contact, ARISS-Europe team
May 21 All-Russian Traveler Festival, Lipetsk, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia team
May 27 Aznakayevo youth, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia  ARISS contact, ARISS-Russia team

April 29: Students at Istituto Comprensivo 1 Chieti in Abruzzo, Italy conducted an ARISS contact with Samantha Cristoforetti, who answered 15 of their questions. As the ISS pass ended, the principal and the school gave Cristoforetti greetings and best wishes.  300 students in their classrooms watched the action via livestream (within a week, viewers of the recording totaled 715). After the contact, an ARISS Technical Mentor presented a talk to everyone about the ARISS program.  TV stations RAI3 and RETE8 covered the activities. A few ARISS Italy team members who were on standby at their ARISS ground station, livestreamed that activity with the contact’s audio; they garnered 47 views. Other European space-enthusiast hams provided YouTube videos of the ARISS radio transmissions for 88 viewers. A practice session before the contact gave students a lesson on radio communications and that session was livestreamed with 278 watching. This urban school enrolls 1,000 students ages 4-14. STEAM lessons and projects offered at every grade level cover things such as robotics and coding. Students participated in ESA’s "Zero Mission-Astro Pi" project, and in 2021 met Astronaut Luca Parmitano. Members of the amateur radio team from Pescara instructed students on the installation and types of ham radio equipment and antennas they would be using to make the ARISS radio contact.
 
April 21: Ben Davis Aerospace Technical High School (DATHS) in Detroit, MI hosted an ARISS Watch Party for students at Coleman Young International Airport. Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club members brought and set up a ham radio station so youth could listen to Kayla Barron answering Bellefontaine (OH) High School students’ questions during an ARISS contact. ARISS Technical Mentor Larry Koziel brought monitors so DATHS students could watch the Ohio livestream.  The mix of attendees included the DATHS Advisory Board and principal, a teacher, members of the area Tuskegee Airmen Chapter, and airport administrators. DATHS has an ARISS contact in the second half of 2022.
 
April 30: Istituto Comprensivo Tolfa in Lazio, Italy hosted an ARISS radio contact with Samantha Cristoforetti; she replied to 17 student questions.  24 students, a number of staff, TV representatives (RAI3, RAI Gulp, TGR Lazio, Canale10) and an Il Messaggero newspaper reporter were in the room.  2,036 others in school classrooms watched the livestream, which is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKlOwjvTpt8—begin viewing at 37 minutes 10 seconds (you could’ve heard a pin drop!).  Within a week, 3,709 viewers had watched the recording. This urban primary and middle school’s curriculum focuses on language skills and STEM. Students have taken part in ESA’s “Send your Drawing into space with Cheops,” Italian Space Agency’s “Send ARTEMIS-inspired Drawings to the Moon,” Institute of National Astrophysics’ “Learning about Light Pollution,” and NASA lessons on space exploration and the ISS. The area amateur radio club led student activities on radio science and demos of the radio equipment needed for the ARISS contact. 
 
May 3: ARISS educator Micol Ivancic presented a talk titled “Space—the Ultimate Frontier” to 80 engineering students at Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy.  She covered a little space history, Meteo weather satellites, and the ARISS Program.  Ivancic is a 5th grade teacher and this was her first talk to a university audience; she was thrilled to be invited to do so.
 
 
ARISS Social Media for April 2022

ARISS Facebook – April

Twitter: On April 30, 2022, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 16,580, a gain of 1.6% over March.
Facebook: Followers for April 2022 increased to 7,517.
Instagram: Followers at the end of April 2022 grew to 421.
ARISS YouTube: At the end of April, subscribers increased to 1.66k.

ARISS Upcoming Events 
May 12 Scuola Secondaria G Leopardi & Macherio, Lombardia Italy ARISS contact, ARISS-Europe team
May 19-20 Hamvention, a US-wide big amateur radio convention: booth, forum, ARISS-US team
May 20 Forum Accademico Italiano eV, Koln Germany  ARISS school contact, ARISS-Europe team

April 21:  Bellefontaine (OH) High School hosted an ARISS contact with Kayla Barron for all students enrolled in the city’s elementary, intermediate, middle, and high schools. A 9th grader who had earned his amateur radio license, sounded like an adult handling the introduction and managing the mic for students from all 4 schools asking the questions. Two of the high school’s graduates gave inspiring talks on studying hard and their engineering careers at SpaceX and NASA Glenn Research Center.  2,316 K-12 students, 234 educators, and 49 administrators, parents and professionals watched the livestream. From Michigan, ARISS Technical Mentor Gordon Scannell and ARRL Great Lakes Director Dale Williams drove to Ohio for the day. Other VIPs attending were the mayor and school superintendent, school board members, a rep from Armstrong Air & Space Museum, and ARISS Education Ambassador Diane Warner. 315 members of the public and a Michigan school class of 30 watched live via a YouTube video; see https://youtu.be/6t5ZQOw2j68.  In a week’s time, 1,538 had watched the recording.
 
The Bellefontaine School District posted this teacher comment:  "It [ARISS lessons] plants a seed in students. It's creating experiences for students so they can find their path in life. Even with needing to lead a year of lessons on space and communications, I would do it all again.”  A high school math teacher wrote, “Ms. Barron’s answers were so well phrased. She restated students' names, showing she loved talking to them. I truly thank her for showing so much compassion to our youth!”  A fourth grade teacher said: "My whole class is inspired to become astronauts!"
 
Last year, students established the Bellefontaine High School Amateur Radio Club and through the months, classes took part in lessons on wireless communication and space communication.
 
Media--pre-contact:

1. Springfield News Sun   

https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/bellefontaine-school-students-to-talk-to-astronaut-at-international-space-station/NDZMBXWJSFDNBIWFQHDVKZI4QM/ 

1. Peak of Ohio 

https://www.peakofohio.com/news/details.cfm?clientid=5&id=339129  

1. Bellefontaine Examiner 

https://www.examiner.org/bhs-amateur-radio-club-prepping-for-international-space-station-contact-thursday/ 
 
Media—post-contact:

1. WHIO-TV  
   https://www.whio.com/news/local/local-school-set-talk-with-astronauts-later-this-month/6VDGG4VLYNC4NIKFSFWYIAZERE/
   
2. Peak of Ohio
   https://www.peakofohio.com/news/details.cfm?clientid=5&id=339305
   

 
April 14: An ARISS contact held for students at the Rakia-Herzliya Science Center (HSC) in Herzliya, Israel was supported by Axiom crew member Etyan Stibbe. He answered 9 questions. 341 people attended the event and 315 viewers watched the livestream, which is at https://youtu.be/pCf-Spm5R6c?t=2013. In a week’s time, the recording had 1,339 views. Stibbe collaborated with HSC and is aligned with The Rakia Mission, which inspires the Israeli population about space and its opportunities. HSC is an educational institute promoting STEM to 1,500 K-12 students. Its enrichment programs cover technology and science including space, robotics, physics, computer sciences, and life sciences. One of those programs included their ARISS project, which gave 200 high school students a variety of related educational activities over several months on how to operate HSC’s amateur radio satellite station in its Space Laboratory. The Israel Amateur Radio Club helped students track and operate through LEO satellites and learn how to handle radio communications for the ARISS contact.  
 
April 5-6: Engineering students and radio enthusiasts gathered at Pandit Deendayal Energy University in Gandhinagar, India for the “Two Day Workshop on Amateur Radio Technologies.” Rajesh Vagadia, who had assisted as an ARISS volunteer for 2012 and 2019 ARISS contacts in India, conducted sessions with help from ham radio leaders—six men and one woman. 40 students took part in the workshop for eight hours each day; some of the university’s faculty attended. Sessions provided many demos of the newest technologies used in ham radio, some educational aspects of ARISS, and basic radio concepts, i.e., signal propagation and modulation. Students enjoyed the demo on how to receive ARISS SSTV transmissions (picture downlinks) using a simple software-defined radio dongle and a home-built handheld antenna. Also, leaders set up two ham radio stations for students to do ham radio SSTV contacts with one other from room to room—students enjoyed transmitting and receiving their own images and audio to each other. A YouTube summarizing workshop events is at: https://youtu.be/lFf4g4Ubm1k and 160 people have viewed it.  Vagadia wrote: “For several years, I’ve run an ARISS awareness campaign for Gujarat schools—top-class metro ones to small underprivileged-village ones. I believe knowledge should be for all, equally. Right now, I’m assisting a school in a very tiny village with their ARISS education proposal.”
 
 
ARISS Upcoming Events 
 
May 13 Scuola Secondaria G Leopardi & Macherio, Lombardia Italy ARISS contact, ARISS Europe team