Space questions? Just ask an astronaut!

David Heath
Thursday, 25 February 2010 23:35

Science - Space

This evening, seventeen students from Doncaster Primary School took their chance to speak live with an astronaut on the International Space Station.

Creamer has been on board the ISS since launching aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan in December 2009 and is due to return in June this year.

The entire session and infrastructure was provided by ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station).  ARISS is a world-wide volunteer program to inspire students to "pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math through amateur radio communications opportunities with the International Space Station (ISS) on-orbit crew."  ARISS is sponsored by the American Radio Relay League, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation and NASA.

For younger students, as tonight's group were, this is a chance to ask questions of the ISS team members; for older students there are much wider opportunities for interaction.

In Australia, South Australian resident Tony Hutchison acts as the ARISS coordinator.  Tony is also well-known for running a volunteer communications backup service for NASA to communicate with the ISS.  He has acted in this capacity on a number of occasions.

With Tony's supervision, 5 months of detailed planning was undertaken by the school's Science Co-ordinator, David Kay.  In addition, with the involvement of amateur radio operators in Queensland and Illinois (USA), a direct radio channel was established to Creamer on the ISS and made available to amateur radio operators around the world.