The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program recently completed two contacts with school groups in Europe. ISS NASA Science Officer and Flight Engineer Ed Lu, KC5WKJ, spoke on July 1 with students aboard a Russian sailing-training vessel in France and on July 7 with space campers at the Euro Space Center in Belgium.
The July 1 Amateur Radio QSO from the deck of the training vessel Mir marked the ship’s second involvement in a space contact. In 1999, students onboard the ship Mir exchanged greetings with French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré, FX0STB, and Russian cosmonaut Victor Afanassiev onboard the Russian space station Mir.
This year, students of the nearby Val Saint Denis College greeted Lu with “Happy birthday to you” to acknowledge the astronaut’s 40th birthday on the day of the contact. Lu then proceeded to answer 13 questions. Among other topics, students wanted to know about the crew’s voyage on the Soyuz rocket to the ISS, how long it takes the ISS to orbit Earth and the main differences between the ISS and the Russian Mir space station.
Since there were no favorable ISS passes over France, two-way audio for the contact was handled via a MCI teleconferencing circuit. With the ISS over the Pacific at the time, Nancy Rocheleau, WH6PN, handled Earth station duties from Honolulu.
On the morning of July 7, Lu answered questions from space campers during a scheduled ARISS school group contact with youngsters at the Euro Space Center’s ON4ESC in Belgium. One student wanted to know what Lu would change or add to the space program if he had the choice.
“I would love to go to Mars, and I hope that at some point we do have a mission which goes to Mars, Lu responded. No human mission to the Red Planet now is in the works.
Some 150 children gathered in the auditorium. The group included 45 Americans living in Europe, explained ARISS Vice Chairman Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, who was on hand for the contact and introduced the juvenile audience to ham radio and the ARISS program.
Lu answered ON4ESC’s call on right on schedule as well as the 17 questions from the youngsters during the nearly eight-minute pass.
The ARISS contacts from France and Belgium were the 104th and 105th school group QSOs, respectively. ARISS is an international project with participation by ARRL, AMSAT and NASA. For more information, visit the ARISS Web site
http://www.rac.ca/ariss