ISS Fan Club

1. Upcoming School Contact
Robespierre Elementary School in Rueil Malmaison, France has been scheduled for an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contact on Thursday, February 21 at 14:21 UTC. Two hundred fifty-six students in grades 1-5 are enrolled at the school. ESA astronaut Léopold Eyharts, FX0STD/KE5FNO, plans to participate in this contact.

2. Astronaut Training Status
The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) team coordinated two amateur radio school contact simulations between students at Bay Area Charter Elementary in the Houston area and astronauts Mike Fincke, KE5AIT and Koichi Wakata, KC5ZTA at JSC. The two sessions took place on Friday, February 8 via the JSC W5RRR repeater. These two contacts were retransmitted on the Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP). They were also fed into the Echolink AMSAT (101 377) and JK1ZRW (277 208) servers and received 8 connections, including 2 link nodes and one repeater node from the U.S., Japan, and the Ukraine.

3. ARRL Articles on Simulated ARISS Contacts
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) ran a Web story on the simulated ARISS contacts that took place between astronauts Mike Finke and Koichi Wakata at JSC and Bay Area Charter Elementary in the Houston area. See: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2008/02/05/100/?nc=1

The activity was also published in The ARRL Letter. See: http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/08/0208/

4. Columbus Module Launched
Atlantis launched on Thursday, February 7 carrying ESA’s Columbus module with new Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) antennas. ARISS Chairman Frank Bauer sent congratulations to the European team for a job well done. See: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/10day/msg01509.html

5. Shukor Debrief Scheduled
An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) crew debrief has been scheduled with Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, 9W2MUS, on Tuesday, February 26. Shukor, the first Malaysian space visitor, participated in 5 ARISS contacts with students in Malaysia while onboard the ISS.

6. Amateur Radio Newsline Article
On February 8, the Amateur Radio Newsline ran a story on Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) Chairman Frank Bauer’s promotion at NASA. To view this item, go to: http://www.arnewsline.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=

Source ARISS Weekly Status