580 students at Conn Magnet Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina, will participate in a conversation with an astronaut on board the International Space Station (ISS). Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) has confirmed the contact, scheduled for Friday, January 30, 2026, just after 10:00 AM EST.
Radio communications will be provided by the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society under the leadership of John Brier, K4EB. “This contact could not have been possible without a $14,000 grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), said Brier. “The new equipment, which is in cases and movable, will allow us to provide communications for other schools in the area.” Brier added that club members are being trained to operate the gear and it can be loaned to other clubs for use in future ARISS contacts.
Today’s contact will be with NASA astronaut and medical physicist Christopher Williams, KJ5GE. Twelve students will be asking questions, two in each grade level, from kindergarten through fifth grade. All 12 students will be wearing special T-shirts designed by a second grader who won the school’s T-shirt logo contest. Students also had a chance to create a logo for a keychain and there was a winner for each grade. Every student will get their grade level keychain to mark the ARISS event.
The event will be livestreamed at youtube.com/live/tOj-SpbmA30?feature=share and live.ariss.org.
ARISS is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the ISS. In the US, participating organizations include NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, the ISS National Laboratory — Space Station Explorers, ARRL, and AMSAT.