SUCCESSFUL ARISS CONTACT AT ISTITUTO MARCONI, BARI, ITALY
Saturday
November 12, 2011 at 09.50 UTC, which is 10:50 CEST, Istituto Superiore Marconi, Bari, Italy established an ARISS contact with NASA astronaut Michael E. Fossum
KF5AQG onboard the International Space Station. Astronaut Michael E. Fossum
operated with ISS callsign OR4ISS. This was a telebridge contact performed by
ARISS ground station IK1SLD located at Casale Monferrato, Piemonte, Italy.
The
ISS (High School) “Marconi” was founded in 1940. The institute is specialized
in the technological field and at the same time it is a scientific high school
(applied science). There are more than 600 students and the ARI (Radioamateur
Association of Bari) is part of the ISS “Marconi” body. The Institute has
participated in the EduSat project, headed by ASI (Italian Space Agency) in
collaboration with IMT - Ingegneria Marketing e Tecnologia (Italian SME). The
ISS “Marconi” was the main Institute among South Italy High Schools involved in
the above project. EduSAT is still in progress and the students are studying
aerospace concepts such as space environment, space telecommunications, satellite subsystems and so on. A Technological Satellite
Simulator has been realized by IMT to help students make experiments in the
laboratory.
ARISS
mentor Francesco De Paolis, IK0WGF proposed to the radio contact coordinator
for this event to set up a telebridge contact. Mr. Michele Mallardi, IZ7EVR the
radio contact coordinator, decided in favor of this setup. Mr. Claudio Ariotti,
IK1SLD moderated the session. The questions were read by the students at
Guglielmo Marconi High School in Bari where an audience of about 200 students, teachers, visitors participated to the ARISS event.
At
09:50 UTC, contact with OR4ISS was established by station IK1SLD and the
operator presented the event to NASA astronaut Michael E. Fossum KF5AQG.
Using the amateur station aboard the ISS Service Module, the astronaut answered
10 questions prepared by students and exchanged greetings. During the pass the
signal from ISS was loud and clear.
Streaming video was for both contacts on:
http://www.livestream.com/AMSAT_Italia
ARISS contact was announced by web story on ESA Portal
- National News:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMDGMTWLUG_Italy_0.html
Congratulations
to ARISS Puglia Team and to IK1SLD !
73,
Francesco – IK0WGF
ARISS
mentor
photo 2
photo 3
audio recording
