ARISS Team Members, Sponsors and Educational Institutions,
The ARISS team would like to share with you how we are transforming our activities for the health and safety of our students, host educational institutions and our team in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
Our primary objective, in these challenging times, is to protect all the students, faculty, astronauts and our volunteer team in all we do. ARISS is international in scope, like space station. Each one of us, around the globe, are dealing with the COVID-19 virus in one way or another. Each area of the globe is unique in the virus spread as well as in the government policy to protect their people. And the situation in each location is changing rapidly. In some areas, there is a total lockdown. In other areas, it is much more open. Also, the COVID-19 challenge will not end in the short term (weeks). ARISS needs to be prepared for a longer term effect (months). As a result, we have instituted an immediate respoanse effort followed by a more strategic (longer term) initiative to protect all. ARISS leadership, working with a physician on the leadership team, is carefully reviewing all of our procedures in light of the evolving COVID-19 recommendation. We will continue to monitor the local and global situations and will modify our local and global planning, as these situations change.