July 24, 2008

ARISS SCHOOL CONTACT IN HUNGARY THURSDAY JULY 24 2008

An International Space Station Expedition 17 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants from the European Space Camp 2008 at the Zanka Children and Youth Centre, near Lake Balaton, Zanka, Hungary on 24 July.  The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 18:56 UTC, which is 20:56 CET.

The contact will be a direct contact between onboard station OR41SS and ground station HA5KHC. The contact should be audible all over Europe.  Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.800 MHz downlink.  The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

This radio contact will be made from the European Space Agency's Space Camp, from Hungary. One hundred-twenty children of ESA staff members from various European countries, between the ages of 8 and 17, interested in science and sports are participating.  This year they're learning about Earth Observation.  Helped by Hungarian radio amateurs, they would like to know more about astronauts' lives.

Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows:

1.  What kind of animals have been brought to space?

2.  Is it possible to grow food in space?

3.  What planet would be the best for farming?

4.  What plant would be the hardest to grow in space?

5.  What would be the easiest plant to grow in space?

6.  Do animals behave differently in space?

7.  What are the difficulties of agriculture in space?

8.  What is the difference between growing plants on earth and in space?

9.  Do plants grow faster in space?

10. What is GPS technology, and how does it affect agriculture?

11. Do animals eat more in space than they do on earth?

12. Do plants grow upward in space?

The audio for this event will tentatively be fed into the EchoLink *AMSAT* (101 377) and *JK1ZRW* (277 208) servers. 

Please note that there are automatic breaks in the EchoLink audio transmission every 2.5 minutes during the event and while we listen to preparations going on for this contact. Each audio break is approximately 1 second long.  Please configure your systems to not time out during times of inactivity or ongoing audio transmissions.

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

ARISS-Europe chairman