Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has received schedule confirmation for an ARISS radio contact between an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and students at the Blackwater State High School located in Blackwater, QLD, Australia. ARISS conducts 60-100 of these special amateur radio contacts each year between students around the globe and crew members with ham radio licenses aboard the ISS.
Blackwater State High (BHS) is a rural school on the Central Highlands in Central QLD with 350 students from Years 7 – 12. BHS has close links with local industry partners both in the coal mining industry as well as in agriculture. Approximately 25% of their students are indigenous. The school’s special education program caters to students with disabilities, approximately 33% of the student population. BHS has a STEM program and has twice run international study tours in 2016 and 2018 to a NASA Space camp. All year levels at BHS (Year 7 to Year 12) will be involved in this ARISS contact as well as their feeder primary students.
This will be a telebridge Contact via Amateur Radio allowing students to ask their questions of astronaut Matthew Dominick, amateur radio call sign KCØTOR. The downlink frequency for this contact is 145.800 MHz and may be heard by listeners that are within the ISS-footprint that also encompasses the telebridge station.
The ARISS amateur radio ground station (telebridge station) for this contact is in Aartselaar, Belgium. The amateur radio volunteer team at the ground station will use the callsign ON4ISS, to establish and maintain the ISS connection.
The ARISS radio contact is scheduled for August 15, 2024 at 7:43 pm AEST (Blackwater, Australia) (9:43 UTC, 5:43 am EDT, 4:43 am CDT, 3:43 am MDT, 2:43 am PDT).
Check facebook at facebook.com/ARISSIntl for live stream links that may become available for viewing the contact.
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As time allows, students will ask these questions:
- How long will the International Space Station be up there for?
- How do you eat in space and what effect does this have on your body?
- What surprised you the most when you first went to space?
- How did you get into NASA and what did you have to do to become an Astronaut on the ISS?
- What research is being completed and what data have you collected while on the ISS?
- What do you consider to be the future of space exploration?
- If something breaks on the outside of the ISS, how long does it take to fix, and what happens if you don’t have the parts to fix it?
- When you are not working in the ISS, what do you do to entertain yourself? How do you stay in the right mindset?
- How do you measure time on the ISS? How do you know if it is morning or night and keep your body to a routine?
- How long did it take you to adjust to the gravity changes in space?
- Do you think that there are any other life forms in our universe?
- What is the most interesting thing you have seen?
- It is obviously a huge privilege to be on the ISS, but what did you consider when making a decision to apply to be in the space program?
- Do you have to steer the ISS or is it completely programmed?
About ARISS:
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the ISS. In the United States, sponsors are the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program (SCaN) and the ISS National Lab—Space Station Explorers. The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics topics. ARISS does this by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students. Before and during these radio contacts, students, educators, parents, and communities take part in hands-on learning activities tied to space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see http://www.ariss.org.
Media Contact:
Dave Jordan, AA4KN
ARISS PR
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