ARISS

AMATEUR RADIO

ON THE

INTERNATIONAL

SPACE STATION

 

A PROJECT OF ROMEO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

and the

Silver Springs Radio Club

MARION COUNTY, FLORIDA

 

This page is a source of up-to-date project information for teachers, parents, volunteers, and students.

 

 

·       PROJECT OVERVIEW:

 

The ARISS project, sponsored jointly by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), and the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), provides scheduled opportunities for schools around the world to communicate with astronaut Amateur Radio Operators (Hams) aboard the International Space Station.  The astronauts are speaking directly with groups of students and members of the local community about science, technology, and the joys of life-long learning.

 

 

·        SCHOOL PROJECT UPDATE (01/18/07) :

 

 

We did it!

 

On January 17th, 2007, Romeo Elementary became the 265th school around the world to have a successful contact with the International Space Station.   Eleven students, one from each of the 4th and 5th grade classes, were able to get answers to each of their two questions.  All 4th and 5th grade students were present in the cafeteria for the contact.  The entire school was able to listen and watch via closed-circuit TV.

 

Astronaut Mission Specialist-Educator Joe Acaba made presentations to all students and was in attendance for the contact.

 

A sincere thank you to Commander Sunita Williams and to all of the volunteers that worked to make this unique opportunity become a reality for all of the students at Romeo Elementary.

 

 

           

==>HAMS HEADED FOR SPACE

 

NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency have named two astronauts and two cosmonauts to make up the next International Space Station crew, Expedition 15. While their duty tours will not coincide, if the current schedule holds, there will always be at least one US and one Russian radio amateur aboard the ISS for the next year.

 

Astronauts Clayton Anderson, KD5PLA, and Daniel Tani, KD5TXE, will travel to the station next year as flight engineers. Anderson will ride to the ISS aboard shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-118, targeted for next June, and he'll return to Earth on shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-120, which will carry his replacement, Tani, to the station. Tani will return via the shuttle in October 2007. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin, RN3FI, and Oleg Kotov will fly to the ISS next March on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and will spend six months aboard the orbiting laboratory.

 

Yurchikhin will command Expedition 15, and Kotov will serve as station flight engineer and Soyuz commander.

 

Until Anderson arrives, astronaut Sunita Williams, KD5PLB, will serve as Expedition 15's third crew member and flight engineer. She's scheduled to fly to the ISS on shuttle Mission STS-116 in December. Williams is reported to be eager to do ARISS school group contacts from NA1SS.

 

The same shuttle flight will carry European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang, KE5CGR/SA0AFS, Sweden's first astronaut. He will serve as a mission specialist on his first journey into space, an 11-day ISS construction mission.

 

Plans are under way to arrange for Fuglesang to carry out an ARISS school contact with students in Thunmanskolan located in Knivsta, Sweden. The contact would be the first ARISS school QSO with Scandinavia.

 

 

 

Updates to the school schedule for the 2006-2007 school year have been submitted to the ARISS scheduling team.

 

It should be noted that as of 9/29/06 the ARISS team announced that they anticipate only one school contact per month during Expedition 14.

 

The local amateur radio club, the Silver Springs Radio Club, is the radio club sponsor for the project.

 

Grants from the Public Education Foundation of Marion County have been used to purchase educational material and equipment in support of the ARISS project at Romeo Elementary School.

 

ISS viewing opportunities are calculated and posted regularly in the “Quick Links”.

 

Old project updates may be found HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

Web Page Author: Larry Phelps, K4OZS

This web page is made available through the Department of Physics at the University of Florida.