ISS Expedition 10 Commander
breaks in new ticket from space
Astronaut Leroy Chiao, KE5BRW, used his recently minted ham radio license
for the first time November 19 to speak with students in southeastern
Italy from NA1SS aboard the International Space Station. Arranged by the
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, the
QSO also kicked off a series of educational contacts for the Expedition
10 crew, which arrived aboard the ISS in October.
"It's a great pleasure to be addressing you from the International
Space Station," Chiao told the youngsters as the contact got under
way. "This is my first ham radio contact, so I'm honored to be sharing
this experience
with you." Chiao got his license in June while training for his ISS
mission.
Posing questions from Earth were youngsters from two elementary schools
and a comprehensive school in Polignano-a-Mare, ranging in age from 6
to 14. Members of a local Amateur Radio Club set up a satellite Earth
station
at one elementary school and a backup station at the other elementary
school. They also established audio and video links from the station to
monitors in the other two schools' auditoriums. Michele Mallardi, IZ7EVR,
was the control operator.
Responding to a question about the crew's exercise regimen, Chiao stressed
how important it is that he and Expedition 10 Flight Engineer and cosmonaut
Salizhan Sharipov exercise daily during their six-month duty tour. "We
have two hours of exercise scheduled every day," he said. The space
travelers work out using either a treadmill or stationary bicycle, Chiao
explained. There's also a piece of equipment that "mimics the effects
of weightlifting," he said.
One youngster asked the now-standard "food question," and Chiao
managed to regionalize his answer. "We have a variety of items we
can choose from, including some Italian dishes," he said. "Some
of my favorites include classics like spaghetti and also tortellini."
Others wanted to know if the crew sometimes felt alone, how they talked
to their families, what they did when they were not working and whether
it was easy to acclimate to weightlessness. In all, Chiao managed 18 questions
during the approximately eight-minute contact. Just before the
ISS went out of range, Mallardi aired the students' farewells and the
audience's applause.
Onlookers at the Earth station included not only pupils and teachers
but several high-level local, regional and national government officials
as well as representatives of the military. The event generated news accounts
via several radio and TV outlets and attracted reporting teams from print
media that included the Amateur Radio publications Radio Rivista and Radio
Kit Elettronica.
ARISS is an educational
outreach with US participation by ARRL, AMSAT and NASA.
Source: ARRL Letter - courtesy of The
American Radio Relay League
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