ARISS CONTACT FOR ESA ASTRONAUT PAOLO NESPOLI, IZ0JPA AND ITALIAN SCHOOL SUCCESSFUL

Saturday, 29 January, 2011 at 10:31 UTC, i.e. 11:31 local time, Primary School “Alessandro Cialdi” in Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy, established a ARISS contact with Italian astronaut PAOLO NESPOLI, IZ0JPA on board the International Space Station. Astronaut NESPOLI operated with the special Italian callsign IR0ISS that he will use during his mission. The Primary school “Alessandro Cialdi” in Civitavecchia operated the contact with callsign IK0WGF.

Primary school "Alessandro Cialdi" makes part of 2nd Learning District of Civitavecchia, is attended about 300 pupils aged 6 -11. The school was build in 1926 and named "Alessandro Cialdi", a Civitavecchia renowned citizen who lived from 1807 to 1882 and he was famous as Papal Navy commander, Head of the prestigious “Accademia dei Lincei”. Besides curricular subjects (italian, maths, science, english, etc.) our pupils take part in specific projects, for the duration of one year, for instance the "Comenius" project called " Save the Planet", in cooperation with seven european schools.

ARISS mentor Francesco De Paolis, IK0WGF and radio contact coordinator for this event in Civitavecchia decided to set up a direct contact with assistance from ARISS Telebridge station IK1SLD, installed at Casale Monferrato Airport, Piemonte, Italy. The questions were read by the students at “Autorità Portuale “ in Civitavecchia (Port authority of Rome) where an audience of about 200 students, teachers, visitors and media assisted to the contact. Before the contact, ARISS mentor Francesco De Paolis, IK0WGF introduced the event with a presentation on ARISS project.

At 10:31 UTC contact with IR0ISS was established by station IK0WGF. Astronaut Paolo NESPOLI answered 17 questions and exchanged greetings before closing the contact at LOS.

The signal from the ISS was not loud and clear all the time during the pass, due to some problems with the radiation path and three brief downlink signal interruptions caused by the HAM Radio Packet system.

Regional and local media and newspapers covered the event.

Streaming video counted more than 60 connections on:

http://www.livestream.com/AMSAT_Italia

ARISS contact was announced by web story on ESA Portal - National News:

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMN7QBE8JG_Italy_0.html

Congratulations to both ARISS “IK0WGF” and “IK1SLD” teams!

Francesco De Paolis, IK0WGF

ARISS mentor

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