ARISS contact planned with technical college in Poland

Saturday February 4, 2012 at approximately 12.41 UTC, which is 13.41 CEWT, an educational ARISS contact is planned with the Polytechnic school in Walbrzych, Poland. Amateur radio station W6SRJ, located in California, will operate the contact.

The Polytechnic school in Walbrzych has been established in 1946. These days it is well known as Secondary Complex School "Energetyk", with a population of over 900 students. They study electricity, electro-mechanics, electronics, technical graphics, telecommunications, IT and ITC techniques, advertising. The school is equipped for students with disabilities, education is on a very high-level and graduate students can easily find employment. It is the best technical school in Walbrzych.

Apart from teaching, the school offers many other activities. The Shooting section exists since sixty years and takes leading positions in "The Silver Muskets" contest. Since three years, students take part in the Robotic Group, acquiring knowledge and having a lot of fun, building robots from scratch, according to their own ideas and knowledge. They were several times among the winners in prestigious competitions on an International level. There is also the school band "Underland". The band is well-known in Walbrzych for they perform many concerts, in the city and around. In school is also active in "Energol TV" and they produce a newspaper "Alcatraz 2".

The amateur radio club SP6PBA is located in the school. Besides HF communications with HAM operators all over the World, the club also transmits HAM TV in the 1.2 GHz band.

The ARISS contact will be conducted in English. It will be broadcast on EchoLink AMSAT (node 101 377) and JK1ZRW (node 277 208) Conference servers, as well as on IRLP Discovery Reflector 9010.

Students will ask as many of the following questions as time allows.

1. Lukasz (18): What is the difference between an astronaut and a cosmonaut?

2. Kacper (16): How does it feel to be weightless?

3. Karol (20): How long does it take to get accustomed to gravity after returning to Earth from the ISS?

4. Mateusz (20): Are large structures on the Earth such as the Chinese wall or the artificial islands

in Dubai visible from the ISS? What else?

5. Piotr C. (20): Is eating in weightlessness difficult?

6. Dawid (18): How do you spend your free time on the station?

7. Sebastian (16): Has the crew got any health problems related to being in space?

8. Piotr J. (16): What kind of everyday tasks and what kind of experiments do you perform on the ISS?

9. Lukasz (18): How did it happen that you became an astronaut? Did you dream about it as a child?

10. Kacper (16): Do you keep in touch with your family when you are in space?

11. Karol(20): Are you provided with media such as phone, Internet, radio or TV?

12. Mateusz (20): Is the rubbish thrown out into space or brought back to Earth?

13. Piotr C. (20): Which planets of our solar system apart from Earth can you see through the window in Cupola module?

14. Dawid (18): Is it hard to take care of personal hygiene in the absence of gravity?

15. Sebastian (16): How long does the trip from lift-off until docking at the ISS last?

16. Piotr J. (16): How long does an astronaut’s mission training last?

17. Darek (55): How did you celebrate the beginning of 2012 on the station and which time zone did you have to adjust to?

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.

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

ARISS Chairman