ARISS-Europe News Bulletin – 11.11.2006
COMMANDER MICHAEL LOPEZ-ALEGRIA TALKS TO BELGIAN
SCHOOLCHILDREN
Friday 10 November 2006 at 14:37 UTC (15:37
local time), an ARISS telebridge contact was
performed in Gentbrugge, Belgium with US astronaut Michael
Lopez-Alegria KE5GTK, commander of the International Space Station.
A previous attempt had been planned 27
September during Flanders Science Festival in
During the October 26 Progress docking,
Russian flight controllers were unable to confirm whether an automated antenna
on the rocket had retracted as commanded. If still extended, the antenna could
have interfered with the final latching of the supply ship to the ISS. To avoid
disturbing the softly docked cargo ship and to aid the crew with docking maneuvers, the ISS orientation was allowed to drift freely.
During free-drift mode, however, the
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) -- which handles communication
between the crew and Mission Control in
NASA called on a special -- although
little-known -- Amateur Radio team to stand by if needed.
Amateur Radio on the International Space
Station (ARISS) Ops Team "ISS Ham Contingency Network" volunteers
around the world immediately swung into action. Within 15 minutes of receiving
the call from
The call-up marked the first time that
NASA had asked for such Amateur Radio assistance since the initial crew came aboard
the ISS in November 2000. Ransom said that by remaining available to ensure
solid communication while Mission Control staff dealt with the docking issue,
the ISS Ham Contingency Network provided Mission Control with an additional
layer of security.
Once the antenna retraction problem was
resolved, the contingency network stood down. NASA's request and the ensuing
ham radio activity did serve as a valuable drill.
NASA says Expedition 14 Commander Mike
Lopez-Alegria, KE5GTK, and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin, RZ3FT, and Thomas Reiter, DF4TR, opened the hatch to
the supply ship October 27 to unload supplies. Consequently, no time was left
to do the scheduled ARISS School Contact with Flanders Science Festival.
Hence the re-scheduling
of the ARISS contact with the Henri Dhaese primary
school in Gentbrugge.
The 11-12 year old schoolchildren had
prepared 20 questions and commander Lopez-Alegria
answered all the questions during the 10 minutes pass over the ARISS telebridge ground station W5RRR located at
“My name is Ida. Do you miss your family
up there?” – “Hello Ida. Of course, I miss my family.
I have a 7 year old boy and love him very, very much”.
“My name is Yuri. What do you miss the
most in space?” – “Yuri, we miss a lot of things, also some simple things such
as the smell of freshly cut grass or the sound of waves”.
“My name is Frank. Why does NASA prefer
to send people instead of robots?” – “Well Frank, I think that robots can do
some of the things that we can do and there are very sophisticated robots. But
I think it will be a long time before robots can actually replace humans”.
The audio of this space talk is attached
hereto.
Three TV stations, a radio broadcast
station and newspapers covered the event.
ARISS, Amateur Radio on the International
Space Station, an international working group of several amateur radio
societies from countries participating to the ISS, provides a free educational
outreach programme in collaboration with the Space Agencies, involving a worldwide
team of volunteering amateur radio operators.
73
Gaston Bertels,
ON4WF
ARISS-Europe chairman