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 Previous: Understanding the FCC's Broadband Over Power Line (BPL)
Notice of Inquiry |
 Next: The
Amateur Radio Crossword Puzzler |
Before the contact, control op Steve Gorecki, VE3CWJ, explains how the ARISS QSO will proceed to those assembled in the Lively Secondary School gymnasium. On the wall is a Nova display that indicates the ISS' position. |
Natalie Sgoifo asks her question, while Steve Gorecki, VE3CWJ, holds the microphone, and other students wait in the queue for their turns. |
A youngster at Kuise Elementary School asks a question of astronaut Ed Lu, KC5WKJ. [Satoshi Yasuda, JK1ZRW, Photo] |
NEWINGTON, CT, Jun 19, 2003--The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program reached a milestone June 12 with its 100th school group contact. Doing the honors was Expedition 7 NASA Science Officer and Flight Engineer Ed Lu, KC5WKJ. Lu took the controls of NA1SS aboard the space outpost to answer a dozen questions from students gathered at Lively District Secondary School in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
"I would choose to go on a mission to Mars," Lu told the students, answering a question about what mission he would pick if he had the choice. "Because I think that's the place in our solar system that has the best chance of having life besides our Earth, and I would love to go there to try and find that." Lu said that while a human spaceflight mission to Mars is not yet on NASA's schedule, he hopes to one day have the opportunity to journey there. "Maybe one of you kids down there will get a chance to do it if I don't get to go."
Lu says he sees a lot of things that are "incredibly interesting" from his vantage point in space, including looking down at Earth and viewing the northern and southern lights. But he said he hasn't been moved to want to live in space indefinitely.
Aboard the ISS since late April, Lu is part of the first two-person crew headed by Expedition 7 commander Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP. They arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz vehicle, which also serves as the escape vehicle for ISS crew members. The Expedition 7 crew is scheduled to return to Earth in October.
Asked whom he would like to have accompany him into space if he could pick one person, Lu replied, "If I could bring one person with me, it would be my fiancee, and if I said anything else, boy would I be in trouble."
Lu says the most valuable thing he's learned so far in space is patience. "Sometimes you don't need to do something right away, you don't need to make a decision right away," he said. "I think that's true in life."
On Earth, Steve Gorecki, VE3CWJ, served as control operator. He had assistance from members of the Sudbury Amateur Radio Club, who helped to install antennas on the roof of the school's gymnasium and equipment inside. Students participating in the contact came from several area schools.
"It definitely had an impact on the kids," Gorecki told ARRL after the
contact, "but it only dawned on them later what they'd actually done." Students
involved were in grades 7 through 12.
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On June 14, pupils at another Canadian school--École primaire de l'Apprenti-Sage in Québec--enjoyed a successful ARISS contact. Among other topics, the primary schoolers wanted to know how long Lu would be in space, if it hurt during liftoff on the Soyuz, his favorite activities in space and how the crew "drives" the ISS. Youngsters at the school had been studying space and space-related topics leading up to their scheduled contact. Members of the Club Radio Amateur de Québec (VE2CQ) set up and managed the Earth station for the direct contact.
Gaëtan Trépanier, VE2GHO, handled control op duties as some 500 students and visitors looked on. A dozen students each got to ask a question before the ISS zipped over the horizon. "It was a resounding success," said Daniel Lamoreaux, VE2KA, the Radio Amateurs of Canada Quebec director who was on hand for the event. Lamoreaux is a member of the ARISS Educational Outreach/School Selection Committee.
On June 18, students at Kuise Elementary School in Amagasaki, Japan, chatted with Lu during a direct contact between NA1SS and 8N3ISS. Among other topics, youngsters wanted to know what country's time the crew followed aboard the ISS, whether zero gravity was "convenient" and if zero gravity changed the intensity of odors.
ARISS is an international project with participation by ARRL, NASA and AMSAT.
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Space Station May Be on the Air During Field Day 2003 The Expedition 7 crew may be on the air from NA1SS during ARRL Field Day the weekend of June 28-29. "We don't know if the crew will be active or not, but give it a try," said ARISS Mentor Charlie Sufana, AJ9N. Sufana advises "good operating sense" and recommended that FD operators wait for the crew to finish a previous contact before calling. "You may be only hearing a station or two," he pointed out, "but they are hearing hundreds." Look for the ISS during Field Day during these time slots:
ARRL Contest Branch Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND, notes that Field Day contacts with the ISS crew do not count for satellite QSO bonus points, just contact credit. "Valid satellite contacts must be Earth-satellite-Earth contacts through a satellite transponder or repeater," he explained. (See Field Day rule 7.3.7.) |
| Previous: Understanding the FCC's Broadband Over Power Line (BPL)
Notice of Inquiry |
Next: The
Amateur Radio Crossword Puzzler |
