ARISS Weekly Status Report - July 6, 2020

• June 22-26: The 2020 ARISS-International Annual Meeting to be held in Germany was changed due to COVID 19 to five mornings on GoToMeeting. Representing 12 countries, 62 people tied in—20% more than at any other ARISS meeting. ARISS Delegates from all 5 ARISS Regions took part. Frank Bauer opened the meeting by recognizing ARISS’s 20 years of successes and attendees heard about commercial crews and a presentation on ARISS’s near and distant future. Morning two included discussions on ARISS operations during COVID 19 such as the new Multipoint Telebridge Contact via Amateur Radio with social-distanced students, ideas on improving operations during COVID and otherwise, and crew scheduling challenges. A full morning on day three was devoted to education with a few items being a review of the ARISS-supported balloon race that saw so many participants, a status on the US team’s Radio Kit project, and the ESA ESERO program with ARISS-related resources for European educators. Another morning focused entirely on ARISS on Lunar Gateway, a very popular topic; covered were requirements, concept of operations—crewed and uncrewed, hardware and software systems, risk identification, and work going forward.

• July 3: An ARISS outreach event was put together in Casale Monferrato, Italy by a group of ARISS volunteers and the ISS Fan Club. They supported a livestreamed YouTube talk with many of the volunteers sharing stories of interesting activities done by the IK1SLD ARISS Telebridge Station and ARISS HamTV Ground Station in that city. Paolo Nespoli was a special surprise guest joining via Skype. He answered a question from a student listener, described highlights from ARISS contacts he has supported, and thanked the ARISS volunteers, calling out their names. Also featured at the outreach event was an earlier interview of Luca Parmitano. The program was livestreamed on two platforms garnering 73 live views, and afterwards, 484 more views.  

ARISS Social Media
 
Facebook in June 2020

Twitter: At the end of June 2020, ARISS Twitter followers totaled 12,765. ARISS has been averaging 135 new followers each month.
  
Instagram: As of June 30, 2020, total Instagram Followers increased and now total 153.
 
 
         ARISS Upcoming Events     

• July 10: The next ARISS contact is scheduled for students from Don Bosco Technisch en Beroesponderwijs (technical and vocational education school) in Haacht, Belgium. This will be a Multipoint Telebridge Contact via Amateur Radio with Chris Cassidy.