November 29, 2008

ARISS CONTACT PLANNED WITH INDIAN COLLEGE

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at St.Anthony's College located in Shillong, province of Meghalaya in India. The event is scheduled on Monday December 1st at approximately 08:19 UTC.

The contact will be a telebridge operated by groundstation WH6PN in Honolulu, Hawaii. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

Founded in 1934 by Fathers of the Don Bosco Society, St.Anthony’s College is one of the oldest colleges in the North East India. The college is situated in Shillong which is a picturesque hill station in India and which is considered as the ‘Scotland of the East’. Since its humble beginning 74 years ago, the college has since grown manifold in size and ranking. Today, the college has 28 departments with 120 teaching staff, 60 support staff and over 2100 students, and is considered as a premier institute of education in whole country of India. Students from the various states of the country as well as some foreign countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Zambia etc study here. The College has been awarded with the highest degree of Five Stars for excellence by the National team, and is well recognized by the UGC (University Grant Commission).

ISS Commander Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, whose father in law graduated from St.Anthony's College, will answer as many of the following questions as time allows:

1. Sasha(21): Do you see any man made objects like the Great Wall of China or the Pyramids etc from the ISS on earth?

2. Mijing(21): How does the human body adjust the balance in outer space?

3. Erickson(21): Do you notice any affect of pollution or climate change destroying the beauty of the earth.?

4. Surajit(21): What type of food you eat and drink there?

5. Manoj(20): What is that you miss most of the earth as you are out in the space?

6. Eti Roy(21): What do you do when one of you get sick?

7. Nambie(20): Do you make oxygen there? How do you breathe?

8. Nathan(21): What happens when you are in space and the shuttle starts to malfunction?

9. Princess Abroo(23): How does it feel to come back into the earth’s atmosphere?

10.Rupam(20): Can You say something in Assamese?

11. Davida(21): We came to know that you know several languages like Japanese, Russian etc. Do you want to learn some words of Khasi language, the language of our state?

The audio for this event is expected to be fed into the EchoLink *AMSAT* (101 377) and *JK1ZRW* (277 208) servers. 

Please note that there are automatic breaks in the EchoLink audio transmission every 2.5 minutes during the event and while we listen to preparations going on for this contact. Each audio break is approximately 1 second long.  Please configure your systems to not time out during times of inactivity or ongoing audio transmissions.

This ARISS event will possibly be broadcast through the IRLP "Discovery" Reflector 9010 on the Internet.
It is then available via the "Discovery" Reflectors companion web site www.discoveryreflector.ca . Once on its main page, select "Live Streaming Audio" (left side bar) and follow the prompts.

More directly the URL is as follows:  www.discoveryreflector.ca:8000/listen.pls

The audio on the Internet is typically delayed by about two minutes.

ARISS is an international educational outreach program partnering the participating space agencies, NASA, Russian Space Agency, ESA, CNES, JAXA, and CSA, with the AMSAT and IARU organizations from participating countries.

ARISS offers an opportunity for students to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly with crewmembers on-board the International Space Station. Teachers, parents and communities see, first hand, how Amateur Radio and crewmembers on ISS can energize youngsters' interest in science, technology, and learning.

73

Gaston Bertels - ON4WF

ARISS-Europe chairman