November 15, 2004

LEROY CHIAO TO START EXPEDITION 10 ARISS SCHOOL CONTACTS WITH ITALIAN SCHOOLS

Expedition 10 crew is presently on board the ISS, comprising astronaut Leroy Chiao, KE5BRW and cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov.

The crew’s first ARISS School Contact will be performed by Leroy Chiao on Friday 19 November with Italian schools located near the city of Bari, in south-west Italy.

This radio contact is a common activity of two elementary schools (pupils age 6 to 11) and one middle school (pupils age 11 to 14). The school center “Direzione Didattica Statale 1° circolo” in Polignano-a-Mare consists of the elementary schools “San Giovanni Bosco” (400 pupils) and “Gianni Rodari” (400 pupils) and the middle school “Ponteo Sarnelli” (600 pupils).

The pupils have prepared the following questions:

1. Mikael: How do you keep fit?

2. Giusi: What do you eat on the ISS?

3. Angelo: Where does the electric power come from on the ISS?

4. Annamaria: Do you sometimes feel alone?

5. Nicola: What kind of sensation do you feel living on board of ISS?

6. Antolnella: How do you talk with your family?

7. Cristina: What kind of instruments have you got to watch the space?

8. Centrone: Do you work on shifts and what do you do when you are not working?

9. Raffaele: Did you easily accustom yourself to the absence of gravity when you got on ISS?

10. Mohamed: How and what do you feel when you see the Earth from the space?

11. Alessandro: What kind of experiments do you do on ISS?

12. Francesca: In what way can you change the orbit of the ISS?

13. Rossella: Which is the most ambitious spatial project for the future?

14. Lucrezia: Is the training on the earth hard before leaving for the space?

15. Lorenzo: What provides you with oxygen?

16. Francesca: What can you see now outside the ISS?

17. Domenico: How long can a man stay in the space without health worries?

18. Davide: Which was your sensation when you were in the space for the first time?

19. Antonella: What do you make use of when you do an E.V.A.?

20. Marco: Why did you decide to become an astronaut?

The contact will start at 14:36 UTC, which is 15:36 central European time.

Interested parties are invited to listen to the downlink signals on 145.800 MHz FM. The signals from Space will be audible over a wide area of the European continent.

Good luck to the Polignano schools and the team operating the amateur radio ground station.

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

ARISS Europe chairman