ARISS stand at the London Science Museum Tim Peake launch event

ARISS have announced details of the first of the school amateur radio contacts with UK astronaut Tim Peake KG5BVI. Tim will be using the special International Space Station (ISS) call sign GB1SS during his 6 month mission.

Students will be able to put a number of questions directly to Tim using amateur radio equipment specially installed at the school for the occasion.

Tim Peake KG5BVI training on the amateur radio station equipment he will use on the ISS

ARISS has released target dates for the following schools:
• Sandringham School, St Albans @SandringhamSch1 between Jan 4-10, 2016
• RMS, Rickmansworth @RMSforGirls between Feb 8-14, 2016
• Oasis Academy, Brightstowe @OABrightstowe between Feb 15-21, 2016
• CNS, Norwich @cns_school between Feb 22-28, 2016

ARISS will announce further details for remaining school opportunities in January 2016.

The ARISS team of licensed UK Radio Amateurs is planning a world first by also receiving live video from the ISS during the contact. Using the HamTV transmitter, which has recently been commissioned on board the ISS, Tim will be the first astronaut to use this equipment during a two way schools contact.

As well as building a vehicle based receive system, which will be installed at the school on the day of the contact, the team visited Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall to commission a dish to receive the 2.4 GHz HamTV transmissions from the ISS.

HamTV dish antenna at Goonhilly – Credit Frank Heritage M0AEU

During the contact at the schools the ARISS team will be providing information displays on the ISS position and have webcams showing both the local and Goonhilly dishes as they track the ISS.

The hosting schools will be organising presentations and displays before and after the contact and the ARISS team will be providing a live web cast of all the day’s events including the actual contact with Tim Peake.

The live event webcast will be hosted by the British Amateur Television Club (BATC) on their web streaming service at https://principia.ariss.org/live/

The ARISS programme is designed to maximise the impact of the Principia Mission outreach activities. It will directly engage students with media and communication technologies with the goal of inspiring them to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

Principia Mission Patch

Tim Peake launch – Amateur Radio in the Media:

• Ciaran Morgan M0XTD was interviewed for the BBC 24 hour TV news channel at around midday
• Jeremy Curtis from the UK Space Agency was on Radio 5 Live talking about the launch during which he mentioned Amateur Radio
• Dr Chris Bridges 2E0OBC was interviewed at 9:17 am on BBC Surrey and Sussex
• Mark Dumpleton M0NCG managed to get a mention of amateur radio in BBC Stargazing Live
• BBC News mentioned the school amateur radio contacts http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35103376
• Times Educational Supplement article https://www.tes.com/news/blog/how-get-your-students-excited-about-tim-peakes-mission

Principia mission sites:
• ARISS https://principia.ariss.org/
• RSGB http://rsgb.org/main/news/principia-mission/
• UK Space Agency https://principia.org.uk/

School Shortlist for Tim Peake Space Station Contact
https://amsat-uk.org/2015/07/14/school-shortlist-tim-peake-iss/

Graham Shirville G3VZV and Chris Bridges 2E0OBC on the ARISS stand at the London Science Museum