• May 17:  Aranzadi Ikastola in Bergara, Spain hosted an ARISS contact with Nick Hague.  He answered 18 questions from the students.  The 380 people attending watched from the main room and a linked hall.  Covering the event were 3 TV stations and 5 print news services.  Earlier PSC weekly reports described several of the hands-on STEM activities involving students.
  

• May 20: Youth at the Curtin Primary School in Canberra, Australia spoke with Nick Hague during their ARISS contact.  He answered 14 of the students’ questions. The school auditorium was packed with 400 people.  The Canberra ABC radio station covered the contact and held a special re-broadcast the next day across its regional networks.  Their outstanding 19-minute segment begins with youth excitedly telling what is about to happen and ends with a thrilled teacher; the link is: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/canberra/programs/mornings/iss-ariss-curtin-primary/11133128
  

• May 16-19: The ARISS team had a major presence at the largest amateur radio convention in the US (32,000 attendees), Hamvention in Xenia, OH.  A booth was set up with banners, posters, a roll-up, and hardware for convention-goers to handle. Team members were Dave Taylor, Frank Bauer, Rosalie White, John Kludt, Ruth Willet, Lou McFadin, Ed Krome, Chet Latawiec and Dan White. They were involved in TV interviews, talks with ham radio industry (potential donors), and special photo shoots. ARISS donated a prize (a wooden display box with 2 ARISS Challenge Coins) to Hamvention that was featured along with a short message on ARISS, first thing at the convention’s highly-attended drawing for big prizes.  Months ago, the team worked hard to win a coveted forum time; the ARISS Forum’s estimated audience count was 120.  The forum featured ARISS teachers and students, a flight surgeon, a video greeting from Serena Aunon-Chancellor, the hardware team, video clips including Tim Peake describing the ARISS station, and a summary of ARISS activities that all ages can do.  Frank Bauer and Rosalie White met with the new CEO of ARRL, an ARISS sponsor; Rosalie met with numerous ARRL Board Members.  The ARISS Team carried out a fundraising effort, running a raffle, distributing updates on Twitter and Facebook and a news release about fund-raising efforts, which was picked up by online ham news services.
  

• May 17:  The cover of the current issue of Make magazine features a story on educational projects in space.  The lead article highlights ISS National Lab programs including ARISS and features a photo of an ARISS contact at the 2018 S.P.A.C.E. conference in Titusville, FL. 
  

           Upcoming Events          

• May 26:  Youth in the Republic of Bashkortostan in Ufa, Russia, will speak with Oleg Kononenko during an ARISS contact.  
  

• May 27: Mildred Hall School in Yellowknife, NT, Canada will have their second attempt at an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.

 

• May 27: An ARISS contact with young people at the Walter Murray Collegiate Institute in Saskatoon, SK, Canada is planned with David St-Jacques.

 

• May 27: Students at Pacific Coast Schools in Los Suenos, Costa Rica are scheduled for an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques. 

• May 5:  Students and faculty at Aranzadi Ikastola in Bergara, Spain have been involved in STEM projects in preparation for their upcoming ARISS contact. They developed an amateur radio module that was installed on a balloon they have launched. The module captured in-flight images.

• Apr 15: The Huntington High School in Huntington, TX sponsored an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.  The teacher went from crying in relief to laughing and grinning upon hearing St-Jacques’ voice coming through the speakers. She was at the ham radio set-up because she had earned her ham license prior to the ARISS contact. Attending the day’s events were 350 students, 30 educators, 5 administrators and a contingent of parents and the community. Another 125 students and 30 educators watched the live-stream from a neighboring school’s classrooms.  The lead teacher reported that students were very interested in ARISS and the related STEM lessons.  The area CBS-TV affiliate ran a story, as did the ABC-TV affiliate; the teacher said the latter’s story was “well-played.”  Immediately after the ARISS contact, faculty and students began final prep for a trip to Louisville, KY, leaving two days later to compete in the World Vex Robotics competition.  

 

• May 5: The Park County District Library in Fairplay, CO had hosted STEM projects with the Boys & Girls Club and several schools for months prior to its ARISS contact on April 15. The principal at South Park High School in Fairplay, sent a thank you letter to the library on behalf of the faculty and his students. He wrote: “Our kids are still talking about that day, two weeks later.  It had an impact on our students.  Anytime we can have days like what we did with the ISS, where some kids change their career goals based on that experience, is an exceptional experience and day in education.  Thanks for all the hard work and allowing us to be a part of it.”  
• The CBS-TV story about Fairplay reported, among other things, that parents were pleased, and quoted one as saying, “They [students] have never been so excited about learning. It’s very awesome, what with all the stuff that’s going on in space.”

 
          Upcoming Events          

• May 17: The faculty at Aranzadi Ikastola in Bergara, Spain is planning for their ARISS contact with Nick Hague.
  

 

• May 20: The Curtin Primary School in Canberra, Australia will get to talk to Nick Hague.

• May 2-4: Bradley University in Edwards, IL hosted the final round of the NASA 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge, one of NASA’s Centennial Challenges.  ARISS team member Dave Johnson took part in the weekend events. He was invited to be in the NASA Room to represent ARISS; he handed out information on ARISS and talked to people interested in the program.  Friday was Education Day and Saturday was Community Day.  Students from local schools were able to go to learn more about the challenge and about space technology, and to see some of the 3-D space technology at work first-hand.  The NASA Room hosted 270 junior high students, 240 high school students, and 800 people from the general public.

• Apr 25: A news story aired on the WWTV-Channel 9 & 10 and was posted online regarding the Traverse Area District Library’s staff sponsoring an upcoming ARISS contact in Traverse City, MI. The contact will occur in late June.  The library staff is working on hands-on activities and their summer reading club has the theme, “A Universe of Stories.”  Area ham radio operators from the Cherryland Amateur Radio Club are building the antennas to be used for the ARISS contact. 

• May 3: An ARISS contact was attempted by Mildred Hall School in Yellowknife, NT, Canada with David St-Jacques. The contact was unsuccessful due to a technical problem on the ground that is currently being investigated. Work is in process to reschedule the contact. A radio station posted an online story about the effort along with STEM lessons involving a robot; the link is:
• https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.myyellowknifenow.com/39424/well-be-back-organizer-will-try-to-once-again-connect-yk-school-to-space/&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTI0Mjg0NjU1NzY2NDQ4NzM4ODcyGjJjYTM2OGU5ZmRjYWQ1ZjM6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNE6GwLjBPjr7P7dIvIJ043mdb2GrQ

• May 7: Moriah Central School in Port Henry, NY was scheduled for an ARISS contact but it was bumped because the SpaceX launch slipped a day. Work proceeds on re-scheduling this contact.

 
                                         ARISS Social Media - April 2019
                                            ARISS Facebook Page Report

 (Spikes were due to interest in the SSTV Cosmonautics Day events and the passing of       astronaut Owen Garriott.)

• ARISS Twitter followers at the end of April totaled 10,607, a gain of over 2% from the end of March.

 
      Upcoming Events          

• Two ARISS contacts are to be re-scheduled, as described above.
  

• Apr 24: Students at Hidden Oaks Middle School in Prior Lake, MN, had a successful ARISS contact with David St-Jacques. The faculty and 1,000 students were in the audience watching. The Prior Lake American newspaper story is at: https://www.swnewsmedia.com/prior_lake_american/news/education/welcome-to-the-iss-hidden-oaks-students-contact-space-station/article_7851e854-6f92-5592-b1e5-04c5e3cbae06.html Each year 8th graders take part in a high-altitude balloon launch and use ham radio to track the balloon during flight and for recovery.  The 7th grade technology students learn about space education as they construct rockets.  Students in all grade levels are involved in annual E-STEM Day with 8th graders focusing on STEM career exploration.
  

• Apr 29: Two Spanish schools shared an experience of a lifetime at the Observatorio Astronómico de Mallorca in Costitx, Spain.  This observatory hosted an ARISS contact for the following two schools in Palma de Mallorca: Colegio San José Obrero and Colegio Luis Vives. Nick Hague handled things from the ISS answering 15 student questions. A crowd of 236 were in the auditorium and live-streaming was viewed by 1,800 students in classrooms at the two schools. On hand was a media entourage of two radio and two TV stations and three newspapers covering the event. The observatory sponsors many STEM activities for students. Some publicity posted prior to the contact is at: https://sites.google.com/santjosepobrer.es/contacto-con-la-iss/inici

• Apr 24: Upper St. Clair High School Education Coordinator Patricia Palazzolo in Upper St. Clair, PA was one of three recipients who received recently, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Foundation Educator Achievement Award.  This award recognizes K–12 educators for their outstanding work promoting STEM subjects among America’s youth. Patricia’s students have been involved in ham radio contacts with astronauts on both the Space Shuttle and the ISS.  She and her students presented a paper on her STEM programs at the 2004 AMSAT Symposium in Washington DC. The article about her award is at:   https://www.aiaa.org/home/news/news/2019/04/18/three-k-12-educators-win-aiaa-foundation-educator-achievement-awards Her school’s website write-up is at: https://www.uscsd.k12.pa.us/Page/1105 Her AMSAT Symposium paper is posted at: https://www.amsat.org/amsat/ariss/Presentations/AMSAT%20Symposiums/2007%20Symposium/Launching%20Dreams.pdf
  

 

• Apr 15: Huntington High School, Huntington, TX sponsored an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.  Immediately after, faculty and students began preparing for a trip to Louisville, KY, leaving two days later to compete in the World Vex Robotics competition. Their ARISS information will be in next week’s report.
  

 

• Apr 23: The Dům dětí a Mládeže (House of Children and Youth) Olomouc in Olomouc, in the Czech Republic, was scheduled for an ARISS contact with Nick Hague. Radio contact was not established and the team is attempting to determine the problem.
  

 
         Upcoming Events          

• May 3: Students at Mildred Hall School in Yellowknife, NT, Canada will hold their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.
  
• May 6: Walter Murray Collegiate Institute in Saskatoon, SK, Canada will host an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.
  
• May 7: Moriah Central School students in Port Henry, NY, will talk to Nick Hague for their ARISS contact.

 
 

• Apr. 15: Astronaut and pioneering ham radio operator Owen Garriott passed away in his home in Huntsville, AL.  Garriott served as a crewmember onboard the Skylab 3 space station and on the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS-9 mission. He made history in the ham radio community as the first astronaut in space to communicate with hams on Earth using a ham radio station.  This was the start of the SAREX (Shuttle Amateur Radio EXperiment) program, which brought amateur radio education to space, and led to ARISS.  The ARISS Team placed a tribute on the ARISS website’s home page to honor the details of his life, his contributions to the American Space Program, and his impact on ham radio education and communications in space.

• Apr. 15: Members of the Boys & Girls Club of the High Rockies met at the Park County Public Library in Fairplay, CO for their ARISS contact with astronaut Nick Hague.  The youth were a combination of home-schooled students and public school students.  Hague answered 14 student questions while 470 people watched. A number of dignitaries came, including the mayor and a legislative assistant to a local congressional representative. A TV station was present covering the event. A good quality video of the contact is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATMQ5q3aqoI&feature=share  For nine months, the library sponsored 30 preparatory STEM lessons across 4 library branches and 3 school settings, such as guiding students in building their own model of the ISS.

 

• April:  The Galileo STEM Academy, Eagle, ID, and local ham radio operators have supported several hands-on activities for academy students as preparation for their upcoming ARISS contact. An example is building and learning to aim tape measure antennas while using a portable ham radio to track signals.  The K-5 engineering teacher established a ham radio club and she said students are thoroughly engaged at their radio club meetings.

 

• Apr 18: École internationale de Saint-Sacrement in Quebec City, QC, Canada hosted an ARISS contact between students and astronaut David St-Jacques who answered 19 student questions. The 400 attendees, including 350 students, watched the excitement, and TV media covered the event. The contact was live-streamed--https://youtu.be/SS-dLGPpJC8 (start at about 7 minutes). Another media link is:

http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/videos/6027779323001?fbclid=IwAR2aWgYXRGvkeGvEbuxJiS4g-f0xBkMC_urHufppBcULtpbHZaXdx3T5h2M

•  Apr 11 - 14: ARISS Russia sponsored Slow Scan Television (SSTV) transmissions from the ISS.  Though modulation was low, resulting in less clear images, people with good antennas acquired images and a surprisingly high number were submitted to the ARISS SSTV Gallery at: http://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/.  Due to a holiday for the ISS crew and the Russian Space Agency, troubleshooting didn’t occur.  Two days afterwards, ARISS Awards Committee member Armand Budzianowski reported his team received 1,200 applications for diplomas, with more applications arriving. 

• The SSTV event proved to be an excellent opportunity to grab the interest of Indian students and get them excited. Rajesh Vagadia of Rajkot, India invited 50 students and citizens to his home for a student outreach event.  He handed out ISS tracking charts and details about the crew, and gave a talk on amateur radio, the ISS, and related topics. Rajesh had planned the event around an outstanding visible ISS pass and the crowd watched in amazement as Rajesh did a radio demo, receiving two SSTV images during the pass. Rajesh remarked, “It was an exciting experience for all to sight the ISS at the same time we got signals from it … felt like having handshakes with ISS crew! … It proved a great learning experience for all. Had lots of Q&A until late.” 

• Apr 15:  An ARISS team member visited the Wesley School in North Hollywood, CA.  He brought portable radio equipment so students could listen to ARISS contact taking place in Fairplay, CO. Wesley School kids exclaimed, "That was AWESOME!"  Next, a ham radio demo allowed students to talk to engineers from the Hughes Amateur Radio Club.  The youth and teachers learned details about ARISS; the faculty wants to prepare an ARISS Education Proposal to garner their own contact and a staff member wants to get her ham license. The ARISS mentor remarked, “I'm convinced that every ham radio contact is an opportunity to teach and share.”
  

• Apr 18: A media show in Brussels, Belgium celebrated World Amateur Radio Day.  ARISS Team member Gaston Bertels was featured in a short segment of the weekly show, BRUZZ International.  The link is:

 http://www.bruzz.be/en/videoreeks/donderdag-18-april-2019/video-world-ham-radio-day-celebrated-ham-radio-fan-gaston

• Apr 15: An ARISS contact that was part of the About Gagarin from Space program was conducted for students at South Ural State University in Chelyabinsk, Russia. The successful contact was supported by Aleksey Ovchinin.

• Apr 15: Huntington High School, Huntington, TX sponsored an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.  Immediately after, faculty and students began preparing for a trip to leave a few days later for Louisville, KY to compete in the World Vex Robotics competition. Their ARISS information will be in next week’s report.

 

• Apr 17: A short video segment about ARISS ran during the online weekly news show, Ham Nation.  Topics included ARISS SSTV, schools, ARISS volunteers, and clips of ham radio audio from space in honor of the passing of astronaut Owen Garriott.

 
        Upcoming Events          

• Apr 23: Dům dětí a mládeže Olomouc (House of Children and Youth Olomouc), in Olomouc, Czech Republic will host their ARISS contact with Nick Hague.

 

• Apr 24: Students at Hidden Oaks Middle School in Prior Lake, MN, are excited about their upcoming ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.

 

• Apr 6: Students at Shaftesbury High School in Winnipeg, MB, Canada held their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques who answered 12 questions with a crowd of 450 people attending the event.  Grade 9 students from nine schools in the Pembina Trails School Division came to the host school to participate. Media coverage was by CTV and CityTV, the Winnipeg Free Press, and radio stations CJOB and the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC); the latter two carried on-air interviews. Shaftesbury runs high-altitude robotics projects and students do Mars simulation research with results having been published for presentation at the 2019 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. After experiencing the contact, teacher Adrian Deakin observed, "Today, we have planted a seed with students."  CBC quoted Gabriel Cohen (the center student in the photo below) as saying, "When I was in Grade 9 we tried to contact the astronaut on our own and I became a ham radio operator just because I really wanted to get into these things."  The CTV news link is: http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1657036
  

• Apr. 11: École des Charmilles in Thyez, France hosted an ARISS contact between students and David St-Jacques; the event was well attended by an audience of 200 people including 170 children, teachers, parents, a number of city hall officials, and a regional deputy. Media at the event consisted of TV8 Mont Blanc doing coverage on satellite TV, Radio Mont Blanc, and two newspapers.  School officials wrote:  “Since September 2018, students have followed with passion the mission of David St-Jacques aboard the space station. Through this activity they developed their curiosity for science and humanist culture.”  Two media links are: TV-MontBlanc - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG2pKOKAbRM&feature=share Le Dauphiné - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75npnk
  

• Apr 15-19:  Two members of the ARISS hardware team were at Johnson Space Center for the week for testing EMI and EMC and several other things on the flight-identical unit of the InterOperable Radio System. The team hopes to launch this new radio system to the ISS in late 2019.

 

• Apr 8: NASA’s annual report, ISS Benefits for Humanity, includes a section on education as one of the many ISS benefits.  This section features a group of programs, and one was ARISS that included a link to take readers to ARISS’s web page. Also in that area of the report is an item titled, "Inspiring Youth with Science in Space" and if readers click on that, it takes them to an article about ARISS recently posted on NASA's web site.  The report also had an item titled, "Spacecraft and Modern Technologies of Personal and International Communication Links in Education," which allowed readers to go to an article on the ham radio SSTV MAI-75 experiments from the ISS.  ISS Benefits for Humanity is found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/global-education
  

 

• Mid-April:  The May edition of ARRL’s monthly journal, QST, contains a new column on ARRL Social Media that highlights the best postings of the month.  One set of highlights was on best media coverage of amateur radio, and it included the article in Scientific American titled, “The International Space Station as a Teaching Tool” that talked about ARISS.  
  

 
         Upcoming Events          

• Apr 15: Huntington High School, Huntington, TX will sponsor an ARISS contact with astronaut David St-Jacques.
  
• Apr 15: Nick Hague will support an ARISS contact for youth involved with Park County Public Library student activities and the Boys & Girls Club of the High Rockies in Fairplay, CO.
  
• (ARISS is waiting on reports from the two schools having ARISS contacts on April 15, and will report on them next week.)
  
• Apr 17:  École internationale de Saint-Sacrement in Quebec City, QC, Canada, will host their ARISS contact with astronaut David St-Jacques.

• Apr 6:  Youth from the 58th Hamilton Scout Group enjoyed speaking with David St-Jacques during their ARISS contact in Stoney Creek, ON, Canada.  He answered 16 questions; about 100 people were present. News coverage of the event was by a local TV station and a newspaper service.  This scout group “…provides youth across genders aged 5 to 26 the opportunity to participate in educational activities in keeping with the `Canadian Path’ program established by Scouts Canada.” The `Canadian Path’ encourages curiosity and imagination to pursue individual interests and skills and puts major emphasis on STEM activities.
  

• Mar 29: A detailed tutorial on how Raspberry Pi users can set up a ham radio Slow Scan TV (SSTV) station and receive SSTV images (pictures) from ISS was written by David Honess, ISS & International Education Operations Coordinator at ESA HE Space Operations BV in ESTEC.  The tutorial, “Pictures from space via ham radio,” was featured in the April 2019 edition of the Mag Pi Journal.  The article includes suggested station hardware, Raspberry Pi code to decode the SSTV images, and links to the ARISS SSTV web page.  Journal readers are also alerted about the upcoming ARISS SSTV downlink event which is planned for April 11-14, 2019.  

• Apr 4:  The ARISS team wrote an item that NASA EXPRESS newsletter ran about the opening of the window to accept ARISS education proposals that could result in scheduled ARISS contacts.  The newsletter goes to 41,125 subscribers and is shared with 114,174 @NASAedu Twitter followers, and potentially 30.68 million @NASA Twitter followers. 
• The NASA EXPRESS newsletter’s fourth blurb was about ARISS opening a window to accept education proposals.

          Contact Opportunity: Amateur Radio on the International Space Station
          Audience: All Educators
          Informational Webinars: April 11 at 7 p.m. EDT and April 16 at 9 p.m. EDT
          Proposal Deadline: May 15
          Contact: ariss.us.education@gmail.com

• Apr 1-2: The ARISS-Russia SSTV event using the MAI (Moscow Aviation Institute)-75 experiment was a success. This radio event featured historical images from the Russian space program downlinked during several ISS orbits over Moscow and nearby areas to ham radio operators and other radio enthusiasts. After receiving the images, many participants posted their images at the ARISS online Gallery.

          Upcoming Events          

• Apr 10:  Students at Shaftesbury High School in Winnipeg, MB, Canada are planning their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.

 

• Apr 11: All at École des Charmilles in Thyez, France are preparing for their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.

 

• Apr 11-14:  ARISS plans to downlink Slow Scan TV images as a celebration of Russia’s Cosmonautics Day and international Human Spaceflight, including the anniversary of the first launch of the Space Shuttle on April 12, 1981.  Ham operators and others around the world will download images to post at the ARISS web gallery for the public to see, and in order to earn a special certificate.

 

• Apr 15: Huntington High School, Huntington, TX will sponsor an ARISS contact with astronaut David St-Jacques.

 

• Apr 15: Nick Hague will support an ARISS contact for youth involved with Park County Public Library student activities and the Boys & Girls Club of the High Rockies in Fairplay, CO.

• Apr 17:  École internationale de Saint-Sacrement in Quebec City, QC, Canada, will host their ARISS contact with astronaut David St-Jacques.

        

• ARISS Twitter followers at the end of March totaled 10,385, a gain of over 1% from the end of February.

         Upcoming Events     

• Apr 1-2: ARISS Russia is planning for the Moscow Aviation Institute MAI-75 Slow Scan TV experiment during a few orbits that cover Moscow; expected times are from 1400-1900 UTC. Ham operators there and in adjacent areas should be able to download images.

 

• Apr 6: The 58th Hamilton Scout Group in Stoney Creek, ON, Canada are looking forward to their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.  

 

• Apr 10:  Students at Shaftesbury High School in Winnipeg, MB, Canada are planning their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.

 

• Apr 11: All at École des Charmilles in Thyez, France are preparing for their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.

 

• Apr 11-14: ARISS-Russia plans to hold a Slow Scan TV event related to Cosmonautics Day. Ham operators and others around the world will download images for viewing and posting at the ARISS web gallery to achieve a special event certificate and for the public to see.

• Mar 25: In preparation for their ARISS school contact, students at Moriah Central School in Port Henry, NY have been enjoying a curriculum of space science culminating in building and launching model rockets. The school has designated the first week of April as “Space Week” and will be engaging in more space-related activities prior to their contact day to be sometime in the last week of April.
  

• Mar 20: Excitement filled the students’ day at the North Point School for Boys in Calgary, AB, Canada, as they engaged in their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.  He told students, “Every teacher that has ever taught me anything contributed to my training as an astronaut.”  He answered 16 student questions as an audience of 100 listened.  The school’s online news venues carried several stories about the event. Two TV stations’ reporters were present, and one clip is at:  http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1640517

 

• The school instructor, dressed in a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) jumpsuit complete with CSA patch, was highly pleased about students’ interest in their STEM studies because of the ARISS contact. One activity was building a model of the first Canadian satellite, Alouette 1, which had been launched by NASA.

• Mar 19: The ARISS team continues to make good progress on building the replacement antenna that had to be fabricated because the current ARISS antenna on the ISS will be removed when the Bartolomeo platform is installed.  The testing on the replacement antenna is complete; it has been coated with the silicon oxide depositing to protect from the atomic oxygen environment in space.  ARISS is waiting for Airbus to send the feedline and the handrail clamp so that the team can integrate them with the antenna.

• Mar 18: Nine electrical boards are being populated for each of the 10 units of the new ARISS custom-built Multi-Voltage Power Supply to be completed.  The power supplies are part of the ARISS InterOperable Radio Systems that will replace the aging ham stations on the ISS.  A special group of people were hired to populate the boards so that ARISS team members can build other parts of the radio systems and prepare for the next steps, which are the tests of the flight-identical unit and then the tests of the flight units. 

•  Mar 26:  ARISS will open a window to accept ARISS education proposals from schools and education groups hoping to garner an ARISS contact.  The window is from April 1 to May 15, 2019. This proposal cycle is for ARISS contacts to be scheduled between January 1 and June 30, 2020.  Webinars to answer educators’ questions will be held on April 11 and 16.

• Mar 18:  During an interview for the online podcast, QSO Today, news reporter Joe Lynch spoke about his favorite ham radio activities.  He also discussed ham programs that he feels are the most beneficial to others, and described several aspects of ARISS education activities.

 
 
         Upcoming Events     

• Mar 26: An ARISS contact is scheduled with students at Khabarovsk University in Khabarovsk, Russia, and Oleg Konenenko will be interviewed.
  

• Mar 28: Students at Ulluriaq School in Kangiqsualujjuaq, QC, Canada will speak with David St-Jacques during their upcoming ARISS contact.
  

• Apr 1-2: ARISS Russia is planning to run their Moscow Aviation Institute MAI-75 Slow Scan TV experiment during a few orbits that cover Moscow. Ham operators there and in adjacent areas should be able to downlink images.
  

• Apr 6: The 58th Hamilton Scout Group in Stoney Creek, ON, Canada are looking forward to their ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.  

• Mar 14:   The ARISS team continues to make good progress on the Interoperable Radio System (IORS) being developed to replace the aging, problematic ISS ham station on the ISS.  During a materials review of the IORS Multi-Voltage Power Supply, the plastic used to house its external cooling fan was judged as flammable in the ISS environment.  The team must use a different plastic and will be working with NASA HUNCH to accomplish this.  Students and their NASA mentors will be 3-D printing a plastic unit in two weeks as an evaluation sample.  It will then be decided if the new plastic cover is workable.
  

         Upcoming Events       

• Mar 20: Students at the North Point School for Boys in Calgary, AB, Canada, will have an ARISS contact with David St-Jacques.