ESA astronaut Frank de Winne ON1DWN

ARISS celebrates 500th school space contact

On Tuesday, 27 October 2009, ISS Commander Frank De Winne - ON1DWN - answered questions from students participating to a venue at the brand-new Copernic Science Center in Warsaw, Poland.

This telebridge contact was operated by ARISS ground station VK4KHZ located in Glenden, Queensland, Australia.

At the end of the contact, Frank thanked Shane Lynd - VK4KHZ - for the many ARISS telebridge contacts he already performed. Shane shares these thanks with his colleagues of the 11 ARISS telebridge ground stations which cover all five continents.

This was the 500th School Contact since ARISS began operations in the year 2000. Schools in all continents benefit from ARISS educative School Contacts.

October 15, 2009 students in Gao, Mali talked with UNICEF goodwill ambassador Frank De Winne onboard the ISS and 23 October, students in Mbour, Senegal got answers to their questions, direct from space. During the same orbit, Frank De Winne also talked with students in Ieper, Belgium.

Audio recordings of the Warsaw and Ieper school contacts are available at www.ariss-eu.org/archive.htm.
The audio recording of the Gao contact has been appended to the 16 October News Bulletin. The recording of the Mbour contact will be made available soon.

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 onboard 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.

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Gaston Bertels - ON4WF
ARISS Chairman