ARISS Weekly Status Report - September 21, 2020

• September 18: The Avellaneda Ikastetxea school in Sodupe, Spain hosted an ARISS contact utilizing the ARISS South African telebridge radio ground station to relay communications between students and the ARISS ham station on the ISS. Chris Cassidy supported the contact and answered 10 students’ questions. An audience of 200 watched, including a QMEC TV crew who taped a video and aired it on their news shows. The contact was live streamed, garnering 152 real time viewers and shortly afterwards, 133 more.  The school had posted many messages about the ARISS contact on its Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and web pages.  Faculty coordinated with 15 other schools on a STEM-based curriculum that includes a mentoring program with Deusto University. Students in 1st through 6th grade took part in the ARISS contact and had built models of space vehicles, rockets, the planets, and did online STEM sessions on space, gravity, matter, energy. Prior to Covid, students did a Tomatosphere growth experiment.
  

• August 18: As part of Bishop O’Connell High School students’ on-going STEM learning in the Arlington, VA area, ARISS educator Melissa Pore led them in doing a Tomatosphere project, comparing growth results via online classes. Students had heard an online guest speaker sharing her research results at the Colorado School of Mines on arid Native American permaculture, including growing tomatoes. The 30 listening students and 5 teachers, many who had taken part in an ARISS contact last year, enjoyed learning that the research is being applied to possible farming in regolith on Mars.
  

• September 2-17: The news of Chris Cassidy having set up and installed the ARISS Next-gen Radio System (InterOperable Radio System—IORS) is a popular topic for news show hosts and for posted news stories. Here are 8 examples of ARISS PR hits.
  

•    * September 11: The Hackaday blog utilized material from ARISS’s news release on its new Interoperable Radio System to post a feature on it. The presentation incorporated eye-catching graphics and text to help ham operators learn intricacies of using the repeater mode. The site had a comment section for visitors to ask questions and get answers. The link is: https://hackaday.com/2020/09/10/iss-ham-radio-repeater/.
  

 

• * September 15: An article was posted on the K0LWC blog about the new IORS. The author had contacted Kenneth Ransom for specific details in order to write about the cross-band repeater mode. The article is at http://k0lwc.com/new-ham-radio-onboard-the-iss-is-on-the-air/ and the author reported that the blog garnered 18,000 visitors. A Twitter item was also posted.
  

 

• * September 16: ARISS team member Dave Taylor spoke to 15 members of the Columbia (MD) Amateur Radio Association on good techniques to use when making a contact through the IORS when it is in cross-band repeater mode. This was an online talk followed by a lively Q&A.
  

 

• * September 16: One of the well-known hosts (Gordon West) of the popular online weekly show Ham Nation, gave a talk last week on the new IORS. This week he gave Part 2 of his talk. He focused on the FM characteristics of the ARISS cross-band repeater and best antennas to try to when interacting with the new ISS radio. West said he continues to receive many emails with comments from ham operators who are enjoying the new ISS radio.
  

 

• * September 17: ARISS hardware volunteers Frank Bauer, Lou McFadin and Kerry Banke were guest speakers on the online weekly show (Episode 228) of Ham Talk Live!. They spoke about features of the new IORS radio and that was followed by a Q&A session via Twitter and phone call-in. A recording of the episode is also available at www.hamtalklive!.com. Attendees totaled 35 with another 360 watching the recording. The show’s host wrote: “It is always a pleasure to have people like Frank and Rosalie on Ham Talk Live! sharing their first-hand knowledge about ARISS. Last night, listeners got to hear the two lead hardware designers of the new radio system.”
  

 

• *September 2: ARISS enthusiast John Brier created two Space Comms videos on the activation of the IORS in repeater mode. Video Part 1 announces the news, features an audio clip from an actual pass, and explains all about the new repeater mode. Video Part 2 has audio clips from a full pass of the ISS of radio contacts between hams, allowing viewers to learn about the new enhancement to ARISS’s ISS capabilities. Links to videos are: Part 1: https://youtu.be/6LIgfv_cDCk and Part 2: https://youtu.be/M4gYuUgPAWY
  

• * September 2: The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) posted a lengthy article on its web pages based on ARISS’s news release and email exchanges with Rosalie White about the new ARISS radio system. Information included how the team worked on the second set of hardware to be launched later. ARRL web pages garner over 100,000 readers.  
  

 

• * September 10: ARISS volunteer Dave Johnson presented a Zoom talk to 27 members of the Peoria-Area (IL) Amateur Radio Club followed by a 30-minute Q&A.  Later, 60 other people viewed a recording of the talk.  It covered ARISS’s past, present and future and Johnson shared photos and details of his experiences supporting ARISS school contacts. Dave received many compliments such as “Absolutely awesome.” and “Thoroughly enjoyed it.”  One person asked Dave to give the talk to a club that is located in southern Illinois.
  

 
         ARISS Upcoming Events     
 

• September 22: ARISS educator Joanne Michael will be part of a panel presenting at the online ISS R&D Conference. The panel will celebrate 20 years of student experiments using the ISS, and ARISS will be highlighted, including that it was very first operational experiment on the ISS.
  

 

• September 26: Oliver Amend will give a presentation for the online AMSAT DL 2020 Symposium. The event will feature pre-recorded talks transmitted live on QO-100 and via YouTube.

 

• September 28: ARISS Russia will schedule a contact to be support by Anatoli Ivanishin for students of Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk, Russia.