Flight Engineer Clayton C. Anderson, KD5PLA

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Chinese students to talk to space station astronaut via amateur radio

The ARISS team reports that an amateur radio school contact between an astronaut on the International Space Station, and students in the Nanjing No.3 Middle School in the province of Jiangsu, China has been scheduled for Sunday August 26th at 10:49 UTC.

At that time the ISS will pass over Nanjing at an orbital inclination of 53 degrees. The ground station will be operated by BY4RRR, and the ISS end of the contact will probably be Flight Engineer Clayton C. Anderson, KD5PLA.

To prepare for the contact, elective courses have been offered on amateur radio, and contests will be held to determine the best essays and cartoons concerning ARISS. Other schools in the area will be invited to the event.

The school has an active amateur radio club which was established in 1992 and has been a five-time winner of the national youth amateur radio contest. Local hams and businesses will support the students with the contact. Extensive media coverage is expected from newspapers, television and radio stations and the internet.

The Chinese Peoples Daily have reported that the students in Nanjing will have an opportunity to directly ask the US astronauts in the international space station questions through amateur radio. Wang Long, teacher in charge of the amateur radio activities in Nanjing No.3 Middle School, told the newspaper's reporter that student representatives will have a 10-minute talk with the astronauts.

Wang Long said that the Station is expected pass over Nanjing at around 18:00 (Nanjing time) on August 26. The contact schedule is directly dependent on the performance of Shuttle "Endeavour" that was launched on August 8.