December 6, 2008

ARISS CONTACT PLANNED WITH SCHOOL IN GRADO, ITALY

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Istituto  Comprensivo Marco  Polo, Grado, Italy on Wednesday 10 December 2008. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 10.11 UTC, which is 11.11 CEWT (Continental European Winter Time).

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and IV3YZB. The contact should be audible over most of Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.800 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

Grado is a little town, located on the northernmost coast of the Adriatic Sea, 80km east of Venice, between the rivers Isonzo and Tagliamento. It has a remarkable history: it was under the Roman Empire, it defended the inhabitants against Attila in 452 AD, it became Austrian after the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797 and again Italian after the 1st World War. Today, Grado has 8600 inhabitants and the economy is based on tourism and fishing industry. The Marco Polo is a secondary school but it includes also a primary school. 550 students attend the school.

Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows:
1. How many spacesuits do you have onboard and what kind of spacesuits do you use for the extra-vehicle-activities?
2. How much time can you stay outside during an EVA?
3. Do you use spacesuits equipped with rockets to move around the ISS?
4. Were you instructed to repair all the stations equipment?
5. How much time would it take to change the ISS orbit in order to avoid an impact with space debris?
6. What kind of experiments are you doing during this mission and what are they useful for?
7. How many experiments are you supervising every day?
8. Is every astronaut trained just for special tasks or can everybody do everything onboard?
9. What repair parts do you have on board?
10. For how much time does the ISS air supply last?
11. Do you think that you will participate in the assembling of another space station in the future?
12. What is the brightest area you can see from up there?
13. What is the temperature inside the station?
14. Do you think that in the future even common people could live in Space?
15. Do you always watch the stars and constellations in your spare time?
16. How much time does it take to build the Space Shuttle?
17. Will there be a permanent station on the moon and on Mars in the future?
18. What is the space station and the Space Shuttle made of?
19. What happens if the spacesuit tears during an EVA? Do you have a repair tool with you for these incidents outside the spaceship?
20. How do you feel in Space?

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.

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

ARISS-Europe chairman

http://www.ariss-eu.org